Poltergeist's
by Nyaa-Neko
Summary: A young girl begins an adventure in Sinnoh to capture the sunset in a cup and save her mother from a terrible disease. But when she ends up making a small deal with a ghost, she realizes more lives than just her mother's - and her own - are at stake.
1. The Dream

Poltergeist's

Chapter 1: The Dream

"_Bring me the sunset in a cup, and I'll give you your mother back."_

Priscilla woke up slowly that morning, rubbing sleep from her just-over-ten-years-old brown eyes. She had a weird dream, something about a man telling her to bring him a sunset, but it was fast slipping from her consciousness and memory.

But that didn't matter – even if her brain decided not to work today, that was okay. She didn't have to go to school. It was the first day of spring vacation.

"Priscilla?"

The girl slid out of her low bed, half-crumpling to the floor. Her mother's voice wandered up the stairs and into her room once more.

"Priscilla?"

"I'm coming, Mom," the girl mumbled, pulling a bathrobe on over her pajamas. She lived in Sinnoh, after all, so even though the flowering trees outside were beginning to show their whites and pinks, the mornings were still very cold. Priscilla's home in Pastoria didn't exactly feel the warmth of the nearby southern beaches until much later in the year; it was, however, much farther from the frigid northland and central mountaintops, and those could be cold year-round.

Priscilla was a normal ten-year-old girl, that much was certain. She finished her elementary schooling a few days prior to this morning, and already received her pokemon license from the regional offices in Hearthome City. Her basic schooling was over, and after she took a bit of a break from everything, she planned on traveling around Sinnoh as a trainer. After she finished that, she would come back to Pastoria and enroll in a post-travel middle school, then high school. And after high school, she wanted to go to college and have some sort of exciting career.

She had no clue what such an exciting career would be, however. Priscilla was, after all, only ten.

Yes, the little Sinnohan girl was an average product of the region. Rather superstitious of the power of certain legendary pokemon, of course, ever since the Galactic Incident twelve years prior. Sinnoh had always been a superstitious nation, but now they closed off borders more frequently, monitored scientific activity more closely, and regulated trainer patterns more harshly. People no longer talked about things relating to the Galactic Incident.

Unfortunately, despite the region's best attempts to recover after the Galactic Incident, there were some complications. One of those, though considered somewhat "normal" (despite its rarity), was Poltergeist's disease.

Priscilla knew of three patients with Poltergeist's, and all of them had become afflicted within the time since the Galactic Incident. One was her neighbor's mother, who came down with the disease when Priscilla was four and died when she was five. Another was the man who used to own the marsh plants shop down the road – he died three weeks after he contracted Poltergeist's, and it happened when Priscilla was eight. The third was her best friend's uncle, who was currently dying of it. He was expected to live possibly until sometime in the summer, but nothing was certain.

Or, at least, nothing was certain except for the fact that it had no cure. The first visible symptoms, bleeding around the tear ducts, came too late for it to be cured, anyway.

When Priscilla came downstairs to greet her mother for breakfast, the strange, diluted red tears coming down her mother's cheeks were the things that caught her eye first.

"…Mom?"

"Hi, sweetie," her mother, Amelia, replied, a shaky smile coming over her face. "We have a few things to talk about, you and I."

And that was when Priscilla's precious normal life came crashing down around her.

* * *

It took a week before Priscilla fully realized she might only have a year left with her mom, and a day more than that to realize that the money they needed for her mother's treatment was going to be more than they could really spare.

Poltergeist's may not have had a cure, but the cancerous, bleeding disease could be treated to a certain extent. The Sinnohan ailment was fatal, yes, but patients had been known to live up to seven years with the right treatment. The experimental treatment fell along the lines of standard cancer treatments, involving chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and cocktail medications. Pills, shots, serums, anything the doctors wanted to or could try (as long as the skittish government allowed).

Unfortunately, such treatments were expensive. _Very_ expensive. Amelia had enough saved up and enough coming in from her job as a park ranger in the Great Marsh to cover the living expenses for herself, her daughter, and her two pokemon, but not a whole lot extra. She would have to eventually quit her job due to the disease, and that meant no more money.

Amelia's two pokemon, Jackson the bibarel and Fortuna the staravia, were easy enough to provide for. Fortuna could easily become quasi-wild and live off the land, as she generally preferred to do that anyway, and a family friend at the Pastoria City Gym agreed to take in Jackson for the foreseeable future.

But Priscilla, her daughter, was an expensive dependant. Love alone would not feed a growing girl.

"Priscilla, honey, you always wanted to go on this journey," her mother told her one night as they sat outside, watching the marsh cherries bloom in the moonlight. "You've been talking about it for weeks."

"Mom, I don't want to," the girl mumbled, snuggling up close to her mother. "You'd be alone." A quick glance at her Amelia's bare right arm showed the startling, disturbing signs of swelling sores, another symptom of Poltergeist's. Priscilla snatched up the arm in her hands, holding it close. "I don't wanna go without you."

The woman smiled, wrapping her arms around her daughter. "Sweetie, you know our money can't cover both us and the treatment," she whispered, trying to bite back that acute feeling of failure. "If you leave soon, you'll get an extra few weeks on your friends. They're leaving later in May and June, right? It will be April first in two days! What a lovely day to leave home with a pokemon."

"But you'll be alone," Priscilla stated stubbornly. It was her argument against leaving, and she was going to stick to it.

"I'll have Fortuna, and I can visit Jackson anytime I want. Valerie said she'd come stay with me in a few weeks, too," Amelia said slowly, reminding Priscilla of the long phone talk her mother had with her sister in Solaceon that morning.

Priscilla hadn't meant to overhear much, but she did hear her mother tell Valerie that she didn't want her daughter to watch her die, and that was more important to her than maternal loneliness.

Amelia was scared.

Mothers weren't supposed to be scared.

"And I won't be alone because I'll always have you," Amelia said in a happier tone of voice. "Remember? I bought you a cell phone for your birthday, and you can always call me with it. Even if you don't, you're my daughter, and you'll be with me forever."

For some reason, that made Priscilla even more afraid. "I don't know, Mom. I don't wanna leave you in the _house_ all alone. It'd be scary to be alone, right?"

"Not if I know you're doing a great job with your pokemon out in the rest of the region," Amelia replied. "Tell you what. If you get two badges, any two badges you want, I'll give you a present. You always wanted a glameow for a pet, right? I think Valerie can find a breeder in Solaceon and get on their waiting list early – they give them out quicker to people with more badges, too."

"I don't wanna…"

"C'mon, Priscilla, sweetie, won't you do it? For me?"

* * *

It would have taken Amelia much more than the promise of a glameow to convince Priscilla of leaving.

If it weren't for the dream on the eve of April first, Priscilla might not have left at all.

That was the night when, while trying to fall asleep, Priscilla finally realized her mother was going to die.

The ensuing nightmare convinced her more than ever to stay home. She didn't remember much of it, just that a huge black cloud was taking people away and breaking their necks, as Poltergeist's final symptom was a blood clot in the jugular.

Then the cloud took her mother, and Priscilla watched her die.

After she woke up from that, she found herself shivering, cold, and sore in her neck. The clock by her bed told her it was just after midnight on the first day of April.

She wanted to go run and find her mother, convince herself that her mother wasn't dead – _yet_ – but she couldn't. Instead, she somehow managed to fall asleep again, and this time, her dream was quite a bit different.

This time, she saw him. She saw that man. It was the same dream she'd had the night before her mother told her of her disease, but this time, she saw things more clearly. The man was called Zenith, and he stood behind a strange waterfall in a daytime world she'd never seen.

"_Bring me a sunset in a cup," he told her from behind the waterfall, "and I will save your mother."_

"_How do I do that?" Priscilla asked, staring at the waterfall. There was something wrong with it; it wasn't normal. She couldn't tell what it was, but it was there, and it was wrong._

"_Go to the point where the land touches the sky and hold up a cup. Tell the sun, 'Zenith sent me to capture the sunset,' and you will have it. Then bring it to me, and I will give you the cure for your mother. Bring me the sunset in a cup," he repeated, "and I'll give you your mother back."_

When Priscilla woke up, she knew she had to leave home.

The place where the land touched the sky had to be somewhere in the Coronet Range, as it contained Sinnoh's highest peaks, and it _had_ to be somewhere in Sinnoh, right?

But after the Galactic Incident, the government didn't let people go there unless they were certified with not two, but at least _three_ gym badges.

That meant Priscilla would have to leave home and win those badges, the sooner the better.

So, on that fateful April 1, she set out to leave her Pastoria City home and find the way to capture the sunset in a cup.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do own this story.

Author's Note: Since I'm graduating high school this summer, I thought it would be fun to do a sort of "last hurrah" with a Pokemon fic. My goal is to have at least 15,000-20,000 words in this story by my graduation day, with the end to the story itself before I start college in the fall. Oh, and the other one doing this sort of graduation-story-pact is Digital-Skitty, but I don't know if she's uploaded her story here. It's called "Pedestal", though.

So leave a review! I'll probably update this at least once a week.


	2. The Great Marsh

Chapter 2: The Great Marsh

Amelia was all too happy to help Priscilla pack, as she wasn't feeling exhaustion from the disease yet, and the two found enough item capsules to fit everything Priscilla needed into a medium-sized grey backpack.

"Alright, so your food and camping supplies are in this bag," Amelia told her daughter as Priscilla was sitting on the outside steps, waiting to leave. She held up a blue cloth bag heavy with item capsules to show her daughter where she could find her things, then put it back in the backpack. "So remember that's in the blue one. The green one has all your pokemon-related items, like your potions and antidotes and things. Red has your other travel needs, like a large map and a radio if you get in trouble."

"I know, Mom," Priscilla mumbled. She shifted her weight; she didn't really want to leave when it came down to it. But she knew she had to; she hadn't told her mother about her dream, but she believed in it.

After the Galactic Incident, things like that had more weight. What with all the weird time and space distortions, who knew? Maybe a man like Zenith really did exist, and maybe he really could help her find a way to heal her mother.

"I'll miss you, sweetie," Amelia whispered as she hugged her daughter for the last time. "Are you going to be alright getting a pokemon?"

"Yeah," Priscilla whispered back. "I'll go to the Great Marsh like everyone else does. They got some good pokemon in there."

"Here," her mother said as she gave Priscilla some extra paper money. "Just to cover the entrance cost for the Marsh."

The girl took it. "Thanks," she said.

Then she left, and hoped it wasn't the last time she would see her mother.

* * *

That was how Priscilla found herself tromping through the Great Marsh, fearfully checking the clock on her cell phone. She had only half an hour to find (and catch) a pokemon before she'd have to pay again. It wasn't like the half-hour segments in the Great Marsh were that expensive, but she was only there for one pokemon, and she didn't want to spend too much right away.

After all, nothing in the Great Marsh would help her get into the Coronet range. Therefore, nothing in the Great Marsh would help her get a sunset into a cup.

Which, in turn, meant that nothing in the Great Marsh would help her save her mother.

Nothing, that is, except for what was commonly referred to as a "starter pokemon".

Priscilla was lucky. The Great Marsh was a wonderful place to find a starter; the pokemon inside were fairly diverse, you didn't have to already have a pokemon in order to get one, capture devices came with the entrance fee (a large supply, too), and the obtainable pokemon weren't at such a low level that you'd be limited right away.

Before she came in, she went to the observation deck to plan her "attack" on the Marsh. It was huge, that was for sure, but when she looked through the binoculars, she managed to find quite a few nice pokemon in Area 4.

So one entrance fee and a quick (and, more importantly, free) tram ride later, she found herself knee-deep in mud, wading around to try and find a pokemon.

An azurill briefly popped up, but she ignored it. Sure, the little blue thing was cute, and it would eventually evolve into a strong water-type – and coming from Pastoria City, home of Sinnoh's water-typed gym and the sensational Crasher Wake, that meant a lot.

The key word, however, was "eventually". The sooner Priscilla got into the Coronet range, the better, and for that, she would need something fairly hard-hitting right away.

So the azurill was left alone, though it followed her for quite awhile. It took all of Priscilla's ten years of accumulated patience to leave the cute little blue baby alone, though she did keep her eye out for its evolved form, a marill. None came by, though.

Unfortunately, twenty minutes into her half hour of paid Great Marsh time, she was still pokemon-less. There were more azurills that came by, but other than the first one, they all left pretty quickly. The only other pokemon that came into her range was a bibarel; she tried to capture it, since it took a little while to realize she was there, but her first three safari balls failed to capture and by the time she threw the rock, it ran away.

An insomniac noctowl also flew by overhead, and she half-heartedly threw a safari ball at the desirable creature, but it missed by a long shot. Priscilla watched the ball sink into the mud as the bird flew off into the trees, her heart feeling cold, muddy, and numb.

"Maybe that azurill wouldn't be such a bad idea after all," the little girl muttered, grabbing a safari ball and turning around to throw it at the baby.

But, as luck would have it, the azurill that had spent the entire time following her had suddenly chosen to leave.

The girl groaned, tried to kick the mud, and stubbornly sat down on a rock. Her eyes stung a bit; why wasn't this working? If she didn't catch something – anything! – fast, she'd have to pay again.

Priscilla didn't know if her ego or her impatience could take another payment to the Great Marsh Preserve Association.

Suddenly, though, she caught a faint buzzing sound.

A swish of movement behind.

She grabbed a safari ball in her hand, turned around, and threw it as hard as she could at the moving pokemon.

The creature disappeared inside the ball before she could really see what it was, and the ball fell into the mud.

It sank down lower.

"Wait," Priscilla started, sliding into the mud again. "It didn't come up…it just....sank." She waded over to wear the mud had a bit of an indentation marking where the ball sank. A tiny little hand plunged into the mud. "That means…that means…"

She found something metallic and pulled it up, groaning at the mud's suction effect.

But a muddy, green-and-red safari ball came up, nonetheless. That meant she didn't lose it in the mud, which was a good thing.

The better thing was that it felt a little bit heavier in her hands, showing that it was full.

Full with her starter pokemon.

"Priscilla Vo?" a female voice said as it crackled over the headset she'd been lent. "Your paid half hour is up and your safari balls have been frozen. My computer says you've captured one pokemon. Do you want to pay for another half hour?"

"No," Priscilla answered, shifting the microphone on the headset over to her mouth so the attendant could hear her. "I'm okay. I'll just take the tram back."

"Alright. Do you need directions getting back?"

"No, I can see it. I'm okay."

"Good. Please come by counter three on your way out to return your empty safari balls and headset."

"Okay. Um, thanks."

Then the voice in the headset was gone, and Priscilla found herself wading back through the mud over to the tram. Now she had a pokemon – one she didn't know, but at least she had one – and she could get started on the next thing on her list of important things to do:

Train.

Train so she could get gym badges. Get gym badges so she could go into the Coronet range. Go into the Coronet range so she could find the tallest peak. Find the tallest peak so she could get a sunset into a cup.

Get a sunset into a cup…

…So she could save her mother from Poltergeist's.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do own this story.

Author's Note: I'm going to be updating this once a week on Mondays, I think. If this one is late, it's because of a glitch I keep getting when I try to log in or submit anything to the site. Am I the only one who's getting this?


	3. Jet

Chapter 3: Jet

"I got a bug?" Priscilla exclaimed as she finally opened up her safari ball. She was back in Pastoria City proper, out of the Great Marsh, and after a good cleaning to get the caked mud off the lock on the ball, she finally took the chance to see what sort of pokemon she ended up with.

That pokemon was, in fact, a bug.

And not just any bug – a yanma.

"Yan?" the dragonfly asked as it buzzed around in front of Priscilla. She didn't know anything about the yanma, as she didn't have any sort of information-giving device with her, but it seemed fairly aware of its surroundings and situation.

Maybe the Great Marsh pokemon all _knew_ that trainers were going to come in and catch them, and once that happened, they were on a trainer's team, and that was that.

"Um," Priscilla began, watching as her pokemon hovered, zig-zagging about while keeping its gaze on her. "It's nice to meet you…"

The bug buzzed its mandibles, creating another "yan" sound. Priscilla hoped that meant something along the lines of, "It's nice to meet you, too."

Amelia had always taught her daughter to be polite, but above all, to be extraordinarily polite to the pokemon that would eventually be on Priscilla's team. Even if you only had a pokemon for a day or two, such as if you were transporting it for someone else or finding one to make a trade, you had to treat it like it was a god come to earth.

After all, if it came to a life-or-death situation, you really wanted your pokemon to actually _want_ to run in front of you and protect you from whatever oncoming dangers there might be – or, at the very least, just do what you told them in such a stressful situation. The way you got to that sort of team dynamic was, in Amelia's (and, by association, Priscilla's) opinion, through politeness and civility.

And if things weren't working out, she told her daughter, just get the problem pokemon off your team. Trade them, release them, sell them, just get them away before the bad apple spread its rot to the others on the team. It wasn't worth it to wreck your team in the name of stubbornness.

"Uh, can I give you a name? I don't wanna call you 'yanma'."

"Yan."

Priscilla took that as a yes. "How about…umm…"

The bug stared at her, unblinking and expectant. Obviously, the dragonfly wanted a good name, or it would have lost interest in its new trainer already, but it didn't seem to have any input.

That made the whole thing a lot more of a pressure source than Priscilla wanted.

"How about I just give you a name later," she offered weakly, holding up the safari ball as if that would explain her reasoning. "I'll take you to the Pokemon Center first, and they can tell me if you're a boy or if you're a girl, and then I can give you a name."

The yanma seemed to be perfectly fine with this idea, and Priscilla zapped it up into the ball for easy transport. Sure, the bug would probably be okay flying alongside as she made the trek through the city to the Pokemon Center, but she didn't want to strain it.

Plus, Priscilla hated awkward silences and was notoriously bad at making conversation. Even with her classmates, who could actually speak her language, someone else always had to provide the conversation topics when around her.

Awkward silences and bad conversation skills did not mix at all well, especially when on top of a language barrier.

Priscilla sighed. Even though she had a pokemon and wasn't even out of Pastoria City, she couldn't help but feel alone, lost, and disoriented. She didn't know where she would go after leaving Pastoria, she only sort of had someone to talk to, and her only source of direction was a strange man who came to her in a dream.

Yeah, that would definitely go over well when traveling alone in Sinnoh.

* * *

"Your yanma is fine; perfectly healthy, full health, no defects. Male, level twenty-eight in the level system, primary attacks are uproar, sonicboom, detect, and supersonic. He has the 'speed boost' ability, by the way," the on-site nurse told Priscilla as she went in for a cursory healing and checkup. The nurse, a middle-aged brunette in the standard uniform, gave Priscilla an amused look. "I also took the liberty of cleaning up his safari ball, by the way."

She handed Priscilla a somewhat-cleaner green-and-orange safari ball, a slight smile on her face. Priscilla looked down, mumbled something about the mud in the Great Marsh, thanked the nurse, and slid out of line to let the next trainer pick up their pokemon.

The girl stood aside for a moment, holding the safari ball and thinking. The Pokemon Center didn't exactly provide the greatest creative environment, what with its white fluorescent lights and attempting-to-be-cheery light orange walls, but Priscilla wanted a name for her yanma before she left.

If there were one thing Priscilla didn't think would be polite, it would be referring to her yanma as "Yanma" for the rest of their training together.

Finally, when no ideas came to her, she decided to do the next best thing: steal the first boy's name she came across.

Priscilla happened to be standing near the line for trainers dropping off their pokemon for healing, so she stepped over to stand somewhat near one of the older boys in line. He looked battle-hardened and experienced, his black hair rough from the road.

That, and right next to him was a toxicroak that looked very satisfied with itself. Priscilla assumed that from the smug expression on its face and the fact that it looked as if it had just taken a shower that both the boy and the toxicroak had just come out of a successful challenge against Crasher Wake and the Pastoria City Gym.

"Um, excuse me?" Priscilla asked, stepping up to the boy's side.

The boy looked down on her – he stood over a head taller than her. "Yeah?" he asked, his voice already deep from loss of youth. He crossed his arms. "D'you wanna battle Toxy, or something? She's all I can fight with right now, 'cause my other three are kinda tired from the gym battle." He flicked his wrist toward Priscilla to show her his watchband – there were five gym badges attached to it, one of them being from Crasher Wake.

Priscilla shook her head, eyeing the toxicroak. It – no, she, the boy had called her a "she" – grinned back at Priscilla. The frog probably wanted to show off a bit more. "N-no, I'm good. I, uh, I just started out."

The boy raised a single eyebrow, still looking down. "Oh? What'd you get?"

"Um, I only got a yanma. I got it from the Great Marsh."

"Just now?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. So did I," he added with a grin, gesturing towards Toxy. "I caught her as a croagunk in the Great Marsh. You from here?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Me too." He stuck out his hand. "The name's Jet."

"P-priscilla," the younger trainer stuttered, taking his hand. "Um…"

"What?" Jet asked, Toxy giving Priscilla a weird look from behind her trainer.

Priscilla blushed. Her plan was an embarrassing one, to say the least. "Do you mind if I name my yanma 'Jet', too?"

Jet looked rather taken aback, and Toxy burst out laughing from behind him. He smacked his pokemon, then turned back to look down on Priscilla. "Uh, sure, I guess."

Priscilla thanked him, then dashed out of the Pokemon Center, leaving a confused (human) Jet far behind.

She pressed the button on her safari ball as she slowed to a stop, a confused (yanma) Jet appearing in the air in front of her.

"Your…your name…is Jet," she wheezed, bending over to get her breath back.

Jet buzzed in response.

At least he seemed to like the name.

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. I do own this story.

Author's Note: So, uh, my hard drive crashed…and I have all that I've written backed up on my DA, but it's a pain to copy things over from that. But don't worry – Chapter 4 will be here on Monday, March 9 like normal.


	4. A Starting Point

Chapter 4: A Starting Point

Priscilla gaped as the marill's third bubblebeam slammed into Jet, knocking him to the ground. They had scarcely taken three steps out of Pastoria City to the south when the little blue mouse ambushed them, jumping out of the mud and trapping the pair into a wild battle.

Of course, Priscilla wanted to catch the marill, she wasn't stupid enough to think that she could get away with just a yanma. Yanmas weren't exactly the sturdiest pokemon around, especially when it came to the Sinnoh gyms. (Plus, marills were cute and Priscilla was a ten-year-old girl.) Marills were much sturdier and could take a lot more of a beating, and a solid water-type would be a good choice for the gyms in Oreburgh City and Canalave City, probably a good defensive bet back at Pastoria's gym, too. If she could get two of those, Jet could probably help her out at least at Eterna, and that would make three badges.

Three badges meant she could go into the Coronet range, and that meant she could try and find the highest peak in Sinnoh – which had to be Mount Coronet itself, because she couldn't think of anywhere else – and that, in turn, meant she could pull the sunset into a cup.

And that meant she could give it to Zenith (if she could find _Zenith_, of course), and then…well, then she could do what she set out to do, which was save her mother from Poltergeist's Disease.

Unfortunately, the marill seemed to fare pretty well under Jet's barrage of sonicboom attacks. Jet, on the other hand, was not faring so well against the marril's barrage of bubblebeams.

Which brought Priscilla to the present moment, in which her yanma was on the ground.

The dragonfly buzzed weakly, his wings twitching but not bringing him airborne anymore. The round water mouse grinned, whipping its ball-tipped tail back and forth as it watched its opponent struggle to fly.

"Jet! Sonicboom!" Priscilla ordered, her her voice jumping an octave in panic. They were about to lose to a _wild marill_.

Jet tried to buzz his wings again, if not to get airborne then just to release another one of his sonicboom attacks, but it failed. Two of his four wings were bent, and they didn't push the air quite like they needed to.

Not like it really would have helped much. The marill chose that moment to spit out a fourth stream of bubbles, one that hit Jet point blank and critically.

The dragonfly pokemon shuddered a moment, then crumpled into the mud, defeated.

Priscilla gaped at the makeshift wild battlefield as the marill squealed happily, gave her a triumphant glare, and then dashed into the wilderness off the beaten path.

The girl bit her lip, her eyes beginning to sting and tear up. She fumbled for her safari ball, eventually holding it in the right direction and returning her unconscious pokemon to its holding device.

"Why'd you have to go and _lose_ to a stupid _wild_ pokemon, huh?" she muttered, shoving Jet's safari ball into her jacket pocket and hunching her shoulders stubbornly. Now that Jet couldn't hear her, the frustrated ten-year-old had no qualms about throwing a temper tantrum. Already her eyes started to leak and her feet began to stomp and kick. "Stupid bug! You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bug! I hate you! I hate you! _Stupid bug!_ AAAAH!"

Actually, Jet was somewhat lucky to be missing it. It was the plight of most beginning trainers, especially the majority that lost their first battle. Having a day-old trainer set out right after their tenth birthday with dreams of winning their respective league and becoming a household name was all fine and wonderful, but in pretty much all cases, those dreaming kids had little skill or strategy with which to grasp those dreams.

In fact, most of the famous trainers, gym leaders, and league champions would have gladly told Priscilla that one generally got better through those losses, and that skill and strategy came at the price of realizing you were a small fish in a big pond.

However, there were no such trainers around when Priscilla began to wail and cry and kick stones at whatever she could see through her immature tears. For a while there was no one, as all the wild pokemon were scared off by the amount of noise she was making.

Then someone heard her crying and shrieking, her shouts of "you stupid yanma", and decided to check it out for himself. The boy who turned up wasn't a famous trainer, but one who had been out long enough (with a couple lengthy vacations, but those didn't count).

The boy in question was twelve-year-old Tanner Hamilton, a native of Eterna City and the proud owner of four official Sinnoh League badges. He also had a rather scrappy team of four, one that he really knew he should bulk up to a team of five or a proper team of six, but he liked his team dynamic so much that he didn't want to mess it up by adding a problematic fifth and sixth pokemon. Plus, his team worked well and won him battles, so he didn't see much of a reason to rush into training up another two.

Tanner's second pokemon, a luxray fresh off of her second evolution, padded along beside him, scowling at the mud and the sharp yells of the girl they were about to cross paths with. The luxray, Janna, had little to no patience for immature little first day trainer brats like Priscilla – it was a wonder she had tolerated Tanner long enough to decide not to leave him back when he captured her as a shinx outside of Jubilife.

"Hey!" Tanner shouted once they got within shouting distance of Priscilla. He grinned once she glanced over. "You got any other words other than 'stupid'? Cuz you know that redundancy is the key to losing, right?"

Priscilla blinked, her eyes dry and red from crying. She could feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment at being reprimanded by another boy and by not knowing what "redundancy" meant. "Wha'dyou care?" she spat, rubbing her eyes and throwing politeness out the door.

Tanner shrugged. "You a new trainer?"

Priscilla glared at him. "Started today." She didn't know why he was talking to her, and assumed he just wanted to rub her first battle in her face.

"How many pokemon you got?"

"One."

"What kind?"

"Yanma." She eyed Janna, who looked back at her with contempt. Obviously _someone_ in the boy's team wanted to give her a hard time. Priscilla looked away in shame. Luxrays were generally signs of some sort of talent (or at the very least, hard work), and having one definitely gave Tanner more immediate respect than a silly old yanma would ever give her.

Tanner nodded, thinking for a moment. "Caught 'im in the Great Marsh?"

"Never said it was a 'him'," Priscilla mumbled, but then added a "yeah" to actually answer his question.

"What's your name? I'm Tanner, by the way," he gestured to Janna, "and that's Janna."

Priscilla glanced at Janna again. "Your, uh, starter?"

"Nah, my second," the boy replied, ruffling Janna's fur. She glared back at him, and he stopped. "I got my starter from Eterna Forest," he said, taking out a pokeball and releasing a dustox. The moth fluttered about, cooing at her trainer. "Her name's Cryssa," he gave Priscilla a look. "I started out with a flying bug like you."

Priscilla shifted her weight awkwardly. "Oh," was all she could think to say.

"You want some advice?" Tanner asked, stepping forward to allow Cryssa to land on Janna's back – the luxray didn't look too happy about it. Without waiting for Priscilla to answer, he said, "take the train from Pastoria over to Eterna or Floaroma. Your yanma'll probably do a lot better over there if you just caught him. 'S what I did with Cryssa 'couple years ago."

Priscilla frowned. She didn't want to act like she could make it on her own in her own backyard.

Tanner rolled his eyes. Now he knew why he didn't generally offer advice to stubborn little girls. "You could probably do some damage against Gardenia and get your first badge there. Yanma's got two type advantages, so use 'em. The forest's a good place to train." He sighed, then dug through his pack, taking out a revive and tossing it over. "Take it." He grinned. "We don't need it."

Then he yelled at his dustox and his luxray to follow, and the three walked on by.

Priscilla held the revive for a minute, her face still stinging with loss and embarrassment. Finally, she let out her yanma and applied the revive, allowing the bug to at least fly again. "I guess we'll go to the train station," she muttered, trudging off back in the direction of the home she left behind.

* * *

It took a few hours to get her train ticket, even though it was free with her trainer's identification. They even had a quick healing station on the train for Jet to get back up to his full health level.

Priscilla didn't take Tanner's full advice; she didn't want to sound like a wannabe. Instead, she took the bullet train from Pastoria City to Jubilife City, figuring she could then make her decision on where to go after that.

She sat on the train for a while, as it took almost the whole day to get across the Coronet range, and she looked at Jet.

The yanma never said anything, and even when she thought he did, she couldn't understand it.

_I wonder if that Tanner guy or the other Jet could understand what he's saying,_ she thought, swinging her feet below. _I hope this Jet doesn't lose again. She looked away. Stupid bug. Stupid Tanner. Stupid…_

Priscilla sighed, and looked out the window. She could see Jet peering after her in the reflection.

"We'll win sometime," she muttered bitterly.

She would have glared at him in the reflection, but that wouldn't have been polite.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do own this story.


	5. Shimmer and Gleam

Chapter 5: Shimmer and Gleam

It didn't take long for Priscilla to realize she wasn't a very good trainer.

Jubilife City was a hotspot for trainers, as it connected three gym cities; it also contained Sinnoh's main television studios, the expanding Poketch company's headquarters, Sinnoh's more prestigious boarding schools, the Global Trade Station, and more trainers wandering around than you could shake a stick at.

Jubilife's layout, location, and foundation – solid mountainous rock – made it a nice place for impromptu pokemon battles. During the week that Priscilla spent in Jubilife City, as the Pokemon Center was large enough to allow trainers stay for a week without paying during the off-season, Priscilla took part in quite a few battles…

Most of which she lost.

The first four battles she took part in, one-on-one against other beginning trainers, all ended with her pokemon fainting – the only real exception was her third battle, which could have been seen as a tie, as the other boy's geodude accidently used self-destruct when his trainer ordered a tackle attack. (Although Jet probably would have lost, anyway.)

Her fifth battle was another tie with a boy with a self-destructing geodude, which annoyed Priscilla to no end because for once, Jet was actually doing okay in that battle. Sure, he might have lost, but right up until that stupid geodude self-destructed, the battle looked like it _might_ have been about to swing in her favor.

She won her sixth, but that was because she'd been out for a few days and her opponent, a little Sandgem Town girl with a bidoof, had only been out for a few hours. Plus, the girl's bidoof was caught outside Sandgem, and the pokemon around Sandgem were generally weaker than those from the Great Marsh. So although Priscilla and Jet won, it didn't really feel _deserved_.

Or maybe that was just because immediately after, Jet went down in one hit by another girl from Sandgem Town with a bidoof.

After about four days of rare success battling with other trainers in Jubilife City (and some forced sightseeing while Jet was healing in the Pokemon Center), Priscilla decided that the way she was going about things wasn't the best way to do it.

Plus, she was growing weary of losing and throwing temper tantrums, and the other trainers were beginning to go after her for an easy win – especially the ones from Oreburgh City and Canalave City who were coming in with rock-type and steel-type pokemon who were strong against her yanma.

If she was going to be well known for something, even just in the transient Jubilife City Pokemon Center community, Priscilla didn't want it to be for being an easy one-on-one opponent and a surefire win for anyone with a geodude.

So she decided to take Jet's training elsewhere, as in order to get better she had to _win_, and Jet wasn't doing that in the pick-up one-on-one battles on the streets around Jubilife's Pokemon Center.

For the next three days, Priscilla and Jet tromped around the routes surrounding Jubilife City, particularly the one to the north, Route 204. Plus, the advantage to training with wild pokemon was that she could catch the ones that Jet defeated.

Unfortunately, there weren't many of those, either. Jet did win some of the wild battles, but of the ones he did win were mostly with bidoof. Priscilla liked them well enough to consider catching them, but she learned fast that Jet was expensive to keep outside the Pokemon Center. He had to eat just like she did, and while breakfast and dinner were free with their stay, lunch wasn't.

And for someone who didn't win pokemon battles, money wasn't that easy to come by.

So Priscilla and Jet found themselves on the last day of their stay at the Jubilife City Pokemon Center not much better than they had arrived, though with the general idea that a bug-type wouldn't be able to be a one-man team. They also knew, from Priscilla's stingy manner with procuring lunches, that their team could only really grow by one more pokemon if they wanted to continue to eat_ at all_, so they needed to choose wisely.

Bidoof were fine, but not _that_ fine, as Priscilla suddenly didn't find herself liking a pokemon that actually lost to her starter and was weak to those annoying stuck-up Oreburgh kids' geodudes. The other pokemon she managed to beat were kricketot in the morning, and while they were rare and somewhat sought after by collectors, she didn't want to catch something she couldn't use. Trading was good and fine, but nobody in the Jubilife City Pokemon Center wanted to trade with "that yanma girl who lost really easily" and the GTS was only open to people with a gym badge.

Ideally, Priscilla wanted to catch a starly (despite their weaknesses to geodudes), since she knew how to use them due to growing up with her mother's staravia, and they reminded her of her mother. She also wanted something good against Eterna City's gym, since it was close-ish to where she was and she was sure as _heck_ not going anywhere near Oreburgh's rock-types (or Canalave's steel-types). However, the thing with starly was that they were good against her bug-typed yanma, which meant she couldn't weaken any enough to catch.

So instead, she set her sights on the grass-typed budew, which evolved into roselia. Roselias learned poison-typed attacks and were fairly sturdy, making them a good grass-type choice. That, and they evolved into roserades, which were gaining popularity in the Sinnoh League final tournaments.

On Priscilla's last day in Jubilife City, she set out once again towards the north, keeping an eye out for the tiny green pokemon in the grass. Jet flew above her head, using his wider and more accurate vision to try and see movement in the grass before his trainer did. Jet appreciated Priscilla's attempts at being a trainer, but he had already given up the idea of being on a _good_ team. He just hoped that her plans to catch a budew would pull through so he wouldn't have to be the one losing all the time.

For this, he knew he had to be the one picking the attacks. Normally he would concede to his trainer, however stupid she was when thinking up strategies (all she ever ordered him to do was sonicboom, sonicboom, _sonicboom_), but now…he figured she would be okay with a break in their trainer-pokemon silent agreement if he won her a grass-type.

Finally, Jet saw a burst of plantlike movement, and dove for it before Priscilla could give him an order. He buzzed his wings at a different, changing speed, releasing a supersonic attack to confuse his opponent.

"Jet! What are you doing?" Priscilla shrieked as the golden grass type below Jet slammed into a tree instead of the yanma himself.

The dragonfly yelled back that he was beating a budew for her, but for some reason, his trainer didn't seem to act like she understood what he said. He groaned, then ducked when his opponent swung its arms into a wild poison sting, missing him only by an inch.

If Jet's face could frown, it would have. He didn't know budew could use poison sting.

Nevertheless, he was sure his opponent was what Priscilla wanted. It looked powerful enough, and it had a pretty golden body with purple and black flowers. The black didn't look healthy, but who was he to judge?

He dove again, releasing a different wave pattern from his wings – an uproar, which caused his opponent to shriek in pain and attempt to cover its ears with its flower-hands. When Jet let the uproar subside, he noticed his opponent was too confused, disoriented, and overwhelmed to attack, and so he threw in a sonicboom for good measure.

By the time Priscilla waded through the grass to the battle, Jet's opponent was on the ground, shaking and thoroughly confused.

Priscilla gaped, but when she noticed Jet buzzing at her in his strange language, she figured he wanted her to throw a pokeball. "One…one second…" she reached into her bag and pulled out a heal ball, as she wanted to use her capture as soon as possible.

She tossed the pink ball at the grass-type, and watched it shake and stop.

"Jet, that wasn't a budew," Priscilla said slowly as she went to go pick up the filled heal ball.

Jet flew over to her, staring at her with an air of confusion about him.

She made her way back to the main path, then opened up the heal ball to show her starter. "You caught me a roselia. A _shiny_ roselia. Do you know how rare those are?" Priscilla giggled. "Oh my gosh! A shiny roselia! Wait 'till those snotty-nosed Oreburgh boys get a look at this!"

The roselia in question shook its head, clearing it completely of its confusion, then stared up at the dragonfly that defeated it. Its green eyes narrowed, and its golden mouth pulled into a scowl.

Jet tensed. He heard the roselia's undoubtedly female voice tell him he just got lucky with their battle before whipping her flower-hands around and releasing a cloud of yellowish spores into the air.

It was too quick for Jet to react to – the spores hit him like a tornado, stinging his large eyes and getting into his lungs. He felt his wings tense up and freeze, and soon the ground came up to meet him.

"Roselia, no! NO! STOP!" Priscilla screamed as the roselia shrieked and pounced, slamming her flowers into her yanma teammate over and over, draining the bug's energy each time. Priscilla tried to run up and stop the grass-type, but the pokemon threw a barrage of poison sting barbs at her each time she came close enough.

And when Jet lost consciousness, the roselia just stood up and kicked him away, growling and screaming at him.

Then she turned in Priscilla.

The roselia ordered Priscilla to hand over the heal ball, flowers outstretched at the cowering girl. If she handed over the ball, the roselia promised not to hurt her.

Priscilla looked around – where was everyone? Where were all the trainers? Where were the wild starlies? "Wh-what?" she asked, grasping the heal ball close to her chest. Priscilla couldn't understand the roselia's strange chatter, nor did the roselia understand that Priscilla couldn't.

What they had was a failure to communicate.

And the way it looked to Priscilla, it was going to be a _fatal_ failure to communicate.

So she did the only thing she could think of to do – she stood up and ran from the battle, leaving the roselia and her unconscious yanma behind, screaming for help.

But before she could get very far, she felt a barb sink into the back of her right shoulder, and she tripped.

As she fell, her vision distorted, showing her the brief image of a man behind a waterfall.

_"Use the ground!" Zenith told her. "The ground is your friend! It can help!"_

Priscilla turned around as she fell, ignoring the pain in her shoulder for a second as she kicked the stone she tripped over and the surrounding dirt towards the roselia, blinding her for a moment.

Then she felt the pain of the poison sting the fall shoved the barb deeper into her shoulder, and she couldn't move again.

The roselia shrieked, tried to wipe the dirt from her eyes, and lunged.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do own this story.

Author's note: Monday's are awkward update days for me, so I'm switching it to Sundays. Also - if you read this, can you please review? I like that people are putting it on their favorites list and story alerts list, but it doesn't really help me get better unless I know specifically what people like/don't like...and you can only tell me in reviews. Oh yeah - and I'm doing a bonus update on Wednesday. So check back on Wednesday for Chapter 6. :)


	6. Celebrity

Chapter 6: Celebrity

As her roselia lunged, Priscilla closed her eyes and waited to die. She had no experience with (apparently) rabid roselias, especially shiny ones that were suffering from some amount of immediate post-capture trauma (or something – Priscilla knew there was a term for it, but she couldn't remember it). She assumed that because the roselia beat her yanma in a shutout rematch and was now turning on their trainer, it meant that the roselia was homicidal and that she would die.

At the time, it seemed like a pretty good, solid, logical conclusion, and that, along with Priscilla's adrenaline and overblown panic, kept her from feeling much fear.

At least, she thought, that meant a somewhat painless death.

Luckily for her, that death never came – or, at least, an uncharacteristically morbid voice told her in the back of her mind, it didn't come from the newly captured shiny roselia.

Instead, a large orange form slammed into the roselia, knocking her to the other side of the road and pinning her down.

Priscilla opened her eyes and turned her head slightly, still cowering near the ground.

What she saw was a large, flaming ape with golden plates adorning its body towering over her roselia. Next to the fire-type, her grass-type paled in luster, despite her golden sheen.

"Inna," a male voice ordered from out of Priscilla's visual field, "knock it out with a flame wheel."

The ape, Inna, growled a bit, then swiped her (Priscilla assumed it was a "her" from the name) hands down, creating a burst of wheeling flames that slapped her roselia across the face.

Priscilla's crazed roselia fainted on the spot, of course, overwhelmed by the sheer firepower of the ape. Even if she managed to take out Jet a second time despite type disadvantages, even the strongest of grass-types didn't generally last long against fully evolved fire apes.

"Are you okay?" Priscilla squinted up at a tall young man whose head blocked the overhead sun, his hand outstretched to help her up.

"I think so," she replied, gladly taking his right hand with hers. The second he tugged on it to help her up, though, a blinding white flash of pain shot through her body from her shoulder. She screamed and let go of his hand, grabbing at her shoulder and falling back to the ground, rolling and screaming and crying.

Immediately, the man was down next to her, telling her to calm down and stop thrashing around. When she didn't, Priscilla suddenly found herself pinned face-down to the ground by something furry and warm – the very fire ape that had taken out her roselia.

"You need to calm down," the ape's trainer told her. "You have a poison stinger in your shoulder. I'm going to take it out, okay?"

Priscilla whimpered, but couldn't really do much other than let him yank the barb out of her skin. When he did, it sent another painful flash through her body, causing her to shriek and writhe in Inna's grip.

"I'm going to spray an antidote on it now, okay?"

She didn't have time to respond before she felt a cold spray hit her tingling shoulder, causing it to feel warm and dull. After a little while, Inna let her stand up and lift her face off the dirt road, and when Priscilla went to rub her cheeks, she felt the dirt sticking to the tear tracks.

This wouldn't have been much of a big deal normally, as Priscilla had thrown tantrums in front of random people before and this "tantrum" sort of had a real rhyme and reason to it, but the second she saw the young man's face, she felt a hot wave of embarrassment wash over her.

"You're – you're _Lucas_!" Priscilla gasped, temporarily forgetting about the pain in her shoulder and the fact that she probably had some amount of roselia venom in her bloodstream.

The young man, one of the famous Pokedex holders of Sinnoh, nodded and handed her a fistful of berries. "Pecha berries. Eat."

Priscilla grabbed the berries and ate them one by one as she stared at Lucas. He was Professor Rowan's assistant, always had been, and was one of the three kids – they were just kids at the time! – who overthrew Team Galactic during the Galactic Incident five years ago. "You're…Lucas…" she mumbled between mouthfuls.

Lucas chuckled. "And you just almost died from roselia venom."

Priscilla blushed, suddenly wishing the roselia venom really _had_ killed her. This was a famous trainer! How hadn't she recognized Inna before? Inna! The _infernape_ that was Lucas's starter, back when Professor Rowan began to sponsor Pokedex-based field research with nonaffiliated child trainers…like the other two, the ones from Twinleaf Town, the ones that he met by chance.

The ones that got the turtwig and, more importantly, the piplup.

Dawn and her piplup, Kal and his turtwig, and Lucas and his chimchar. They were, for all intent and purpose, the face of the "good guys" in the Galactic Incident.

And Priscilla, just barely into her second week of training with a silly old yanma starter, was meeting one of them!

At that, the color drained from Priscilla's face. "Jet!" she shrieked, suddenly realizing she didn't know where her unconscious bug was. "Where is he? Jet?!"

Lucas looked worried. "Are you talking about your roselia?" he asked. The roselia lay unconscious only a meter or two away.

"No, no! My _yanma_, where is he?"

Lucas thought for a moment, then dropped a great ball on the ground. It opened to reveal a chatot, one that hopped around a bit before stopping to stare at the roselia on the ground.

"Do you have your yanma's pokeball?" Lucas asked. Priscilla dug around in her pockets before withdrawing the empty safari ball. The chatot jumped into the air, then flew over to snatch the ball out of her hands.

She started to protest, but then the bird zoomed off in the assumed direction of her fallen yanma. "Is he gonna get Jet back for me?" she asked.

"She, and yes." Lucas glanced over to the crumpled, singed shiny roselia. "That was some roselia you caught."

"What? Oh, uh, yeah." Priscilla wrinkled her nose. "I don't like how she attacked me like that."

The young man got up and walked over to examine the roselia, squatting next to it. "How'd you get her from attacking you directly? You only had one stinger in your shoulder, and roselias can shoot out up to twenty at once."

"Oh, uh, Zenith told me to use the ground so I –" Priscilla stopped.

Lucas turned to stare at her. "Did you say 'Zenith'?"

The girl shifted uncomfortably. Did she mess up? She hadn't mentioned him to anyone yet. "Uh-huh…he told me to, so I kicked a rock in her face when I fell down."

The young man stared at her for a moment, pondering something. Before he could say anything, though, the parrot pokemon he'd sent out swooped down, dropping a filled pokeball into Priscilla's lap. "Yanma! Yanma!" the chatot crowed in a twisted rendition of Priscilla's voice. "Yanma! Yanma!"

Half ignoring the return of his chatot, Lucas turned around and opened his backpack, withdrawing a flat red object and a pokeball. "Professor Rowan mentioned something about a 'Zenith'…"

Priscilla stared at him for a minute, then tried to stand up. The antidote and pecha berries were taking effect, and she wasn't so stunned anymore from the fall and the attack. Her shoulder still felt sore and her stomach seemed to be gurgling strangely, but she could walk. She made it to her feet, then started to walk over to him. "Whad'you mean?"

"Shiny roselias are pretty rare, especially around here," Lucas explained, gesturing to the roselia with his head. "I was wondering if you'd like to trade with me? I have a grass-type I think you might like, and he's a lot better with beginners than a violent roselia."

The girl wrinkled her nose. "I dunno. That roselia's _mine_, and I caught it, and it's really rare," she repeated, her stubborn side kicking in.

Lucas smiled. "I have a turtwig, that's the grass-type I'm offering. They're pretty good right away, and this guy's already been trained a bit, so he's not exactly a first-day starter pokemon. I was going to bring him to Eterna City for some training with Gardenia, since that's one of her specialties, but since her other specialty is the roselia line…"

"I dunno. That's not a fair trade," Priscilla said, digging out her heal ball and returning her shiny roselia in a pink flash of light.

"I'd also offer a Sinnoh Pokedex," Lucas added, holding up the flat red object.

Priscilla's eyes bugged out – Professor Rowan didn't just give those away! "Why?" she asked, suspicious. "Why are you giving me one of those?"

"Professor Rowan told me to," he replied with a nonchalant shrug. "If I met someone who was affiliated with a 'Zenith' or some others he mentioned, I was supposed to make sure they had a solid pokemon by their side, for one thing - and when Professor Rowan says a "solid pokemon", he means a turtwig, piplup, or chimchar. He also wants this Pokedex field tested by someone who's got that affiliation, too," he explained. "Plus, I'd like to point out that if I hadn't gotten here in time, you might have gotten shot again by your roselia, and too much of that venom can be toxic. Sometimes lethal."

"Whazzat mean?"

"Deadly."

"Oh." Priscilla looked down at her heal ball. Shiny pokemon were so _rare_, though, and a grass/poison-type was kind of what she wanted.

But turtwigs were also somewhat rare and sought-after, and, like the Pokedexes, they weren't generally just given away. You had to be in good with Professor Rowan or the Eterna City Gym, and that was a very selective bunch.

"You said that guy, um, 'Zenith'," Lucas began, "he said you should 'use the ground', right? Something like that?"

"Yeah. That's why I kicked the rock."

"Turtwig's final evolution is torterra, and they're part ground-type. Grass and ground," he said, "that's pretty much like, you know, _the_ ground."

Priscilla looked up at him, then down at her heal ball, then sighed. "Fine. My roselia for your turtwig and the Pokedex," she said, half-disappointed she couldn't stand her ground and keep what she'd rightfully captured.

But then again, she didn't want to end up dead because Jet couldn't protect her from her own venomous pokemon, and Inna certainly could do that for Lucas…

Plus, now she could be a Pokedex holder. A real Pokedex holder! And this was a different kind of Pokedex, a new one that had to be field-tested. And she would be the field tester!

"It's a deal, then."

* * *

A bonus to trading with Lucas was the free teleportation to Floaroma Town via his alakazam, so Priscilla ended up instantly one town closer to her Eterna City destination.

They parted ways pretty quickly after that, as Lucas wanted to keep moving whereas Priscilla wanted to spend the night (and look at all the pretty flowers).

Once she healed up Jet and made sure her new turtwig was healthy – and seeing that he already had a name, and it was Tor – she took out her Pokedex to test it out. After all, depending on how soon it took its inventory on her team, she either owned two or three pokemon.

She released Tor in the flowers outside the Floaroma Pokemon Center, then held out her Pokedex, opening it up.

Tor looked up, curious, as the Pokedex screen flickered for a moment.

Priscilla shrieked when the picture came up, and almost dropped the Pokedex in a bed of flowers.

The picture on the screen wasn't a normal turtwig – it was a grotesque, dark-gray-and-red monster of a turtwig, one that had been pulled and twisted and deformed until it was almost unrecognizable.

"TURTWIG," the garbled text below read. "TTTTTHHHHHEEEEEEE tiny-leaf POKE ----" Beyond that, it was unreadable.

"What's…what's going on?" Priscilla said, shivering, as Tor looked up. "What is this?"

Whatever it was, it certainly _wasn't_ one of the Sinnoh Pokedexes from the Galactic Incident.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, but I do own this story and all the original characters, storylines, and events it contains.

Author's note: This story takes place a few years after the events of the DPP series (ideally I'd say after a Platinum game in which the player chose the female character, picked piplup, and named her rival "Kal", but I've never played Platinum). I couldn't find the generic name for the rival, so I named him "Kal", since that's what I named him in Pearl. Yeah...


	7. Forest Prelude

Chapter 7: Forest Prelude

Floaroma Town wasn't actually a very interesting place to be. Priscilla liked all the flowers, sure, and the Pokemon Center had awesome free food (and honey), but other than that…

Well, it wasn't a very happening town.

That, and the Pokemon Center only let her stay for two nights without paying, since it was a small town and they didn't have many rooms. So she stayed for two nights, using the day in between to train a bit just outside the town and look at all the flower fields around inside town limits.

In the more secluded patches of flowers, she also tried her glitchy Pokedex (as it had to be glitchy, because no _normal_ Pokedex would display entries for her pokemon like it did) on her yanma and again on her new turtwig.

When she tried to bring up the entry on turtwig, she always got the same garbled text and the same dark-gray-and-red twisted turtwig picture. When she tried to bring up the entry on yanma, however, it had similar garbled text, but the image barely showed up.

The turtwig picture was recognizable as a turtwig despite its deformities.

The yanma picture, however, was nothing more than pixilated noise in the vague shape of a dragonfly. Sometimes if she held it up to the light a certain way, it flickered with a clearer gray silhouette of a yanma, but that only happened once or twice during her stay in Floaroma Town.

She stocked up on supplies at the various stores in Floaroma, both the PokeMart and the general store for her own needs, and then she left the sleepy flowery town without much fuss.

Her real destination was Eterna City, where she hoped to win her first badge, and for that, she needed to travel north first, up into the mountains and through Eterna Forest.

-----

She stopped at around midday after a few minor battles with wild pokemon. Jet was beginning to do better and better against some of the weaker wild pokemon, especially the bidoofs, and Tor did even better against all the water-types that populated the route.

Priscilla sat at the base of a hill and opened a can of pellet food for her two pokemon. Tor ate more than Jet did, which made Priscilla begin to worry about future food costs, but they definitely had enough for a couple days on the road.

"I think we did okay this morning," she said as she took a bite of her sandwich. After her time so far with Jet and Tor, she had begun to realize that neither of them would really talk unless she began the conversation; if nobody talked, even in languages she couldn't understand, the journey was boring and Priscilla was more prone to homesickness.

Tor looked up from his lunch, his large jaw holding a smile for his trainer. He replied happily between bites, chattering about something that Priscilla assumed had to do with the battles he and Jet fought that morning. Priscilla liked that her second pokemon had such a good attitude – judging from their limited time together, he was the type that copied whatever emotion his trainer felt with twice or three times the intensity. (This was especially apparent when he experienced a full-blown panic attack when Priscilla showed any signs of distress when viewing the glitchy Pokedex entries.)

To Tor's left, Jet nibbled on his pellets, staring up at his trainer with his large eyes. Jet didn't have much to say, though he buzzed a bit when Priscilla mentioned her opinion on their battles, and she figured he was just voicing agreement with what she said. Priscilla knew Jet was more intelligent in certain areas than she was – especially with his own battling. That much was apparent when he defeated that shiny roselia a few days earlier. Priscilla did, however, seem to know more about things relating to anything he couldn't have learned while growing up in the Great Marsh. However intelligent he may have been, though, he rarely said much or did anything to help Priscilla in her training. He either followed the path of least resistance or just acted like the "perfect starter pokemon" – seen and not heard.

Priscilla finished her sandwich in between mentioning her plans for the day. Tor continued to babble happily while Jet just looked at her.

It wasn't much, but it was their current team dynamic.

-----

"You know that Eterna Forest pokemon usually come at you in pairs, right?"

Priscilla looked up from her cereal. After overnighting on a rocky ledge on Route 205, it was a pleasant surprise to find a trainer's hut right outside Eterna Forest. It acted just like a Pokemon Center, offering a free night's stay to any trainer with valid Sinnoh trainer's identification.

Since Priscilla had that, she had no problems with staying there overnight, using their healing machine, and eating their complimentary breakfast (she had to provide her own dinner).

She stared at the young man towering over her. He was one of the older trainers that worked at the hut, a park ranger for Eterna Forest, as it was a preserved area. He reminded her of the Great Marsh park rangers back home.

"They come in pairs?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, they do. Do you have at least two pokemon? It can be dangerous to go in with only one."

Priscilla nodded. "Uh-huh. I got a yanma and a turtwig."

"Only two, huh?" The ranger thought for a moment. "A bug and a grass-type…do you want an escort? I'm sure I can find you an escort, or at least another traveler to go with you in a pair. It helps – you run into a ton of wild pokemon in there, and I'd rather not have to go find you if you get stuck."

She shook her head. "I'm okay. My pokemon are good," she added, though it was more for her own reassurance than the ranger's. "I can always catch something if I feel scared."

The ranger frowned, obviously not that fine with her going by herself. "Alright…well, I'm going to give you a radio in case you get in trouble. Just return it to the hut on the other side once you get out." He dug around inside his backpack, and placed a clunky gray radio device on the table across from Priscilla. "Just be careful, and use this as an SOS in case you feel threatened. Remember – it's better to be safe than sorry."

Priscilla took the radio and put it in her backpack. "Yeah, I know. I'll be careful."

------

The first few hours in Eterna Forest weren't that bad – Tor and Jet fought pretty well together, especially against the common pairs of silcoon and cascoon. She had enough healing supplies to get them through the forest, and they usually ran from anything that looked at all threatening.

The rather uneventful battles against the weaker bugs, though, were perfect. They were easy wins for her pokemon, and even though they didn't help much, they gave her pokemon experience and made them stronger.

So when the sunlight seemed to disappear from the forest earlier than normal – she figured this was due to the thick canopy blocking the weak late afternoon sunshine – Priscilla didn't feel that scared when she had to camp out underneath one of the many trees.

She set up her tent by herself, with Jet and Tor outside on the lookout for any wurmples that wanted to drop down onto her little sanctuary, then ordered her two pokemon inside.

"If we stay in the tent, we can zip it up and nobody will bother us," Priscilla explained as Tor waddled inside and Jet flew in behind him. She waited until they were both inside the camping tent, then zipped up the entrance, closing it off to the forest outside.

Priscilla had to smile at the sight of the inside of her tent – it was becoming more and more like a little sanctuary, a familiar home to sleep and rest in. She had a sleeping bag curled around one side, and Jet and Tor sat on the other on top of the tent's floor. In the middle was her flashlight-lantern, giving a soft light for the three teammates to see each other by.

"I like having you guys out of your pokeballs at night," she said as she snuggled up inside her sleeping bag. This was the first time she hadn't recalled them at night – the idea of being ambushed in the forest was enough to sacrifice space for peace of mind. She really liked it, though. "C'mere."

Tor gladly bounded up to sleep next to her, cuddling sort of like a reptilian cat would. Jet landed next to her, wary of the trainer rolling around and crushing his body.

Priscilla fell asleep with a smile on her face, glad to have her two boys near her.

She only slept for a few hours, though – a little after midnight, something heavy crashed into her tent. Tor shrieked as Priscilla got up with a start, and she had to recall the poor turtle so as not to panic him further. Jet peered out from behind her as she unzipped the tent's door and stepped outside with her flashlight, trying to ignore her fear of the dark.

On the ground was an unconscious wild pokemon pair, a rather powerful-looking buneary and murkrow. Priscilla flinched as she saw another pair drop out of the trees only a few meters a way – this time a cascoon and a dustox.

Jet caused her to flinch again when he landed lightly on her shoulder, though his presence and physical contact calmed her down a little.

"Who's out there?" she yelled, trying to sound braver than she felt with little success. "Get where I can see you!"

The forest was quiet for a moment - a moment just long enough for Priscilla to remember that she left the SOS radio inside her tent.

Then a budew pair was thrown against a nearby tree, and as they hit the ground, the LED's in her flashlight exploded simultaneously, and the forest went dark.

-----

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, but I do own this story.


	8. Darkness Prevails

Chapter 8: Darkness Prevails

If Priscilla's brain had been working the way it should have, she probably would have screamed. She heard the budews roll to the ground, and she could see their limp bodies in her mind's eye. For some reason, the two little grass-types spooked her the most - were they dead? _Were they dead?_

She could hear Jet buzzing wildly just above her shoulders, but without her flashlight working, she couldn't see him. Priscilla dropped her useless flashlight, hearing the dull thud as it hit the ground, and then felt above her head for her yanma.

When his little legs made contact with her fumbling hands, she could have cried with joy. Priscilla, like most little girls, wasn't exactly the most comfortable with being in total darkness - and being in a wild, overgrown forest at night didn't exactly help the matter.

Then - a light sound in the distance, wafting through the darkness. It came at a somewhat high pitch, much like a girl not much older than Priscilla laughing softly.

"Who - who's there?" Priscilla shrieked, feeling her eyes widen for any bit of light that still existed in the night forest. Her eyes began to tear up as well, both due to straining them and her own emotional panicking, obscuring any chances she had at getting a clear visual picture. (Not that she would have, anyway - the forest was too dark, and her only light source had exploded.)

"_Who's there?_" a hissing girly voice replied, mocking Priscilla's cry. Priscilla jumped and Jet tensed in her hands; the other girl's voice surprised him, too.

Priscilla took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. It was obvious by then that they weren't alone, and she assumed the taunting voice belonged to whatever was attacking those wild pokemon. "Jet," she whispered, trying to keep calm and not doing too well, "c-can you figure out wh-where she is?"

The yanma thought for a moment. He knew he probably couldn't, and not only would his childish trainer not understand his answer either way, but giving any sort negative answer might cause her to panic just as badly as his turtwig teammate.

He didn't really want that. Jet didn't really care for Priscilla much, but she fed him and let him see new places, and he figured he might as well just take what he could out of living with her. Most Great Marsh pokemon thought that way - not many pokemon born in the Marsh died there, and he considered him lucky to be getting any battling time at all. Most captured Great Marsh pokemon ended up as pets or in a collection. If Priscilla was going to be his trainer, he wanted to make her want him around.

He answered: "Bzzzz_yes_zzzz." Then he picked his way out of Priscilla's sweaty grasp and flew in the direction he thought he heard the girl's voice, leaving Priscilla behind.

If he had paid a bit more attention to his trainer at that moment, he would have heard her gasp at the fact she _thought_ she heard him say "yes" somewhere in his incomprehensible buzzing. That wasn't the only weird thing about it, either - it didn't sound like she imagined understanding yanma-langauge would. It sounded like someone was translating Jet's speech. Someone else.

And that someone else took that moment to launch a heavy, invisible attack against the poor bug, throwing him into a tree and almost knocking him out.

Priscilla heard the thud and screamed. "Jet! Jet? Jet! Sonicboom - SONICBOOM!"

Jet buzzed weakly as he tried to get back into the air. What was that girl screaming about? Sonicboom would be useless! Didn't she see that the only pokemon that could be doing all of this was a _ghost_? He wasn't sure what attack it was that hit him (and all the other pokemon in the forest), but it was powerful, and it felt like a ghost attack.

He finally got airborne when he heard the girl's voice again - "_why do you tell him to use _that_ attack? Sweetie, you're so silly! Ask him to use supersonic or detect - I'll be nice and wait._"

Jet had enough time to feel gratified that at least someone knew how to use his attacks (as well as worried that their opponent knew his attacks), when Priscilla squeaked out a "s-supersonic?" He flew higher, trying to buzz his wings in the right frequency.

The sound waves were sent out in the right direction, but something was wrong. Then the same ghost attack slammed into him from behind as the girl whispered, "_good, but do you really think I'd let it hit me?_" And then he was on the ground, and his opponent floated down over him.

A flash of red eyes burned into his super-accurate vision, and Jet knew he wasn't escaping - that was a mean look attack.

"_Well, I'd say I won this one, don't you?_" the girl - his opponent - asked in a sweet voice.

Jet blinked up blearily. One more attack and he'd be finished.

"Wait! Wait!" Jet heard Priscilla running blindly through the forest, probably following the red flash of the ghost's eyes. He heard her crash through a bush and fall not too far from him, near enough for the ghost to be within attacking distance of her, too. She sounded like she was crying. "Wait!"

"_Hmm?_" The girl-ghost asked, turning her attention to Jet's trainer. "_Oh, you're the little girl who didn't know how to fight with a yanma. How _are_ you, sweetie?_"

Priscilla sniffed. "Why are you attacking us?" she whined.

"_I'm a pokemon - that's what I'm supposed to do, sweetie._"

"But..." Priscilla obviously didn't want to lose to another wild pokemon. "It's not fair...we're just trying to get to Eterna City so we can win a badge! It's not fair for you to attack us!"

The ghost scoffed. "_Sweetie, I'm not entirely certain you really understand the concept of 'wild pokemon' or 'pokemon trainer'..._"

Jet groaned, getting to his feet. He felt a little better and less winded now that Priscilla had distracted the ghost. He wasn't about to launch a surprise attack, as he had no offensive attacks he could use, but he figured maybe they could try and run...

"Where's Jet? Jet? Where are you?"

"Bzz_over_zzbzz_here_z." So much for a stealthy getaway.

Priscilla made a sort of surprised noise. "I can understand you! Sorta..."

Then the girl and her bug winced as their invisible ghost enemy laughed shrilly. "_Well, you're a fast one, aren't you? Why do you think you can understand him, hmm?_"

"Because...he's...my starter?"

More laughing, more wincing. "_Oh, you silly little girl, it is most certainly not._" She flew through the air, ending up near Priscilla's face. The girl whimpered as the glowing red eyes came into full view. "_I'm translating for you. Isn't that nice of me? Now, do you want to continue with this battle nonsense or should I kill you instead?_"

"K-kill me? W-why?"

"_Why not?_"

"B-because I don't want to die!"

"_Mmm...that's not really a great answer. I think I'll kill you._"

"WAIT! But - but - but Zenith still needs to give me the sunset!" Priscilla shrieked, clearly panicking and past the point of logic. (Jet figured he could probably get away at this point, as the ghost's attention lay fully on his trainer, but that stupid safari ball of his kept him from getting that far.) "No...I - I mean, I have to get the sunset! For my mom! I mean - for Zenith! I mean -"

"_Wait, wait, wait - what's this about?_"

"M-my mom has P-poltergiest's and -"

She had to stop talking because the ghost started laughing. "_Oh, this is just too wonderful! Alright, sweetie, I've changed my mind. You're trying to earn badges, correct?_"

"Yes..."

"_How many? All eight?_"

"N-no, just three."

"_Oh, that's easy. Which ones?_"

"Um, Eterna City...maybe...I don't know..."

"_Eterna City won't be hard - I can get you that one. I can probably get you Hearthome's, too; Fantina's ghosts are pushovers, and I'm sure by then we can figure out a third._"

"W-we?"

"_Yes, you see - you need something from me, and that's badges. You don't think you'll get very far with that one-attack yanma over there, do you? I can translate your pokemon for you, so you don't seem so completely stupid when you go up against these gyms of yours. And you can get me something I want - you're traveling, and you'll probably come across some place where you can find a dusk stone. You know what those are, right?_"

Priscilla frowned. "They evolve...some pokemon...right?"

"_Right. Now, why do you suppose I'd want one of those?_"

"Because...you'd evolve?"

"_Riiight. So - what do you say?_" The image of the pokemon in question came into view more clearly - a blue-and-purple glowing floating head with a necklace of red stones, grinning with malice. "_I suggest you say yes, because I'll probably kill you otherwise._"

"...I-I'll do it," Priscilla squeaked, fumbling for an empty pokeball.

The misdreavus grinned and Jet's stomach turned. "_Good girl._"


	9. Miss Darcy

Chapter 9: Miss Darcy

Jet spent the night in his safari ball, and since Tor was also already inside his, Priscilla spent a sleepless night alone in her tent.

Or rather, as alone as she could have been with a misdreavus hanging over her head - literally. Priscilla had trouble sleeping that night, and apparently ghosts didn't sleep.

After a few hours of lying in the darkness, wishing for the ghost to stop staring at her, Priscilla finally gave up.

"So, um," she began in a dry voice, opening her tired-yet-not-sleepy eyes to stare at the dull glow of her new teammate's eyes. "D'you have a name?"

"_Not really,_" the ghost replied in her sweet-scary melodic hissing voice. "_Do you want me to have one, sweetie? Or are you one of those trainers that just shouts out species names and expects their little gladiators to go along with it?_"

Priscilla shifted uncomfortably in her sleeping bag. "I give 'em nicknames," she retorted. "They're Jet and Tor."

"_I'm assuming Jet and Tor are your other two pokemon?_"

"Yeah."

"_Jet is the yanma?_"

"Yeah."

"_And what's Tor? A torkoal? Torchic? Torterra?_"

Priscilla frowned. She knew torkoals and torchics weren't Sinnohan pokemon, and she knew they were fire-types, but she couldn't remember what they were. "Um, he's a turtwig."

She could almost hear the ghost's eyes roll. "_Well, that's creative,_" she muttered, her voice laced with sarcasm.

"I didn't name him," the trainer whined. "He came with the name!"

"_Uh-huh. Anyway, what sort of wonderfully creative name are you planning to give me?_"

"Um," Priscilla began, looking around. All she could see was darkness, but it didn't stop her from trying to find something to help her name the ghost. "I...dunno."

The ghost laughed, and Priscilla had to cover her ears from the shrill pitch. "_Oh, sweetie, you are just too funny!_" She floated closer, almost coming into contact with Priscilla's face - it sent shivers up the girl's spine. "_My name is Darcy. Like Miss Darcy, but smarter and more a fighter. Or, if you prefer, like Mister Darcy, but female and with better social skills. Is this okay with you, sweetie?_"

Priscilla gulped. She didn't quite know why, but the misdreavus's - Darcy's - habit of referring to her as "sweetie" as opposed to "Priscilla" made her stomach turn. "Uh, yeah, it's okay." She was silent for a moment, and then: "My name's Priscilla."

"_Hm. That's a pretty name, Priss-ill-a_," Darcy replied, somehow managing to squeeze out the syllables in Priscilla's name in such a way that it sounded just as bad as her "sweetie" habit.

The girl laughed weakly, then turned over and shut her eyes, trying to go to sleep.

It didn't work that well.

---------

"Guys, this is Darcy," Priscilla mumbled when she finally stumbled out of her tent in the morning. Darcy hovered next to her, looking somewhat less menacing in the daytime.

Jet glared at her, keeping his distance. "_H'llo, ghost,_" he spat.

Priscilla's eyes bulged. "Jet! You can talk!"

The yanma looked at her, surprised and taken aback. "_You know? You know my talking?_" he gasped, bordering on horrified.

Darcy rolled her bloody eyes. "_Yes, yes, didn't I tell you I'd translate?_" she asked, bored with Priscilla's inability to remember their past dialogue.

The girl bit her lip. "But I didn't..."

Her turtwig looked up from his spot on the ground. "_Nice to meet you!_" he chirped to Darcy, oblivious of her creepy aura that seemed to seep so easily into Priscilla and Jet. "_Darcy!"_

"_Hmm, you must be little Tor,_" Darcy mused as she floated down near him. Priscilla's chest tightened - she didn't like Darcy getting too close to the clueless Tor, especially when she didn't really know how Tor's panic attacks worked. She knew they happened, but because this was the first time she could understand what he said, she still didn't understand what set them off.

"_I'm Tor!_" he exclaimed. "_Hi, Darcy!_"

"_You're annoying,_" Darcy replied, a too-wide smile on her face, "_but you're cute. I won't kill you._"

"_Okay!_"

Priscilla exchanged a confused glance with Jet - was there something wrong with Tor, or was he just...really naive?

"_And I already met you_," Darcy said, gesturing to Jet with her bodiless head. The bug made a wordless angry buzz, and rose higher into the air. He didn't seem to like Darcy quite as well as his grass-type teammate.

"Okay, so!" Priscilla exclaimed after she'd shoved all her camping-related item balls into her backpack. They weren't quite as organized anymore, and she probably wouldn't be able to find the capsule with the tent on the first try next time she had to camp out, but it was good enough for a four-hours-of-sleep night. (As a ten-year-old, Priscilla wasn't really used to working through sleep debt.) "Let's go! I don't wanna stay in the forest."

Without waiting for her pokemon to reply, she started to trudge through the grass, squinting through the gloomy half-darkness caused by the canopy. Tor waddled along after her, hopping a bit to peer over the tall grass, while her two airborne fighters hovered in the air just behind her.

The other battles they had to fight in Eterna Forest went really well. Darcy could usually take on pairs of wild ambushing pokemon by herself. Her two best attacks, ominous wind and psywave, worked well in conjunction with the environment - both could be used not just as standard weakening offensives, but also to throw opponents against trees. Oftentimes this would cause some sort of critical hit to the head or back, sometimes resulting in a one-hit knockout.

Her other two main attacks, mean look and confuse ray, also seemed useful. Priscilla didn't know much about strategy, but Darcy did. If she couldn't throw her opponent against a tree, she would trap them and confuse them first, then release a barrage of ghost and psychic attacks.

Compared to Tor and Jet, her main attacks worked well together strategically. Consequently, Priscilla found herself using Darcy more and more as the day wore on, saving Tor and Jet for easier battles or ones in brighter areas; Darcy hated bright light, and even though the canopy blocked most direct sunlight, there were some brighter patches.

Priscilla expected the rest of their time in Eterna Forest to be stressful, as being stuck in a thick, dark forest usually took its toll on the trainers within. But for the rest of that day, nothing really happened. Sure, they fought battles (using more Darcy as the day wore on and the sunlight disappeared), but other than that...nothing.

At night, though, when Priscilla set up camp and returned Tor and Jet to their respective capsules, things got a little more noteworthy.

For one thing, Darcy stayed out - she liked the dark and didn't need to sleep, so why bother going inside her pokeball?

So as she fell asleep, Priscilla had a creepy-yet-somewhat-friendly ghost staring at her. Later, the girl would blame that sight as she fell asleep as the reason her dreams turned sour.

-----------

_Her dream started out normally: she was walking along a mountain road with flakes of sunlight all over the ground. The flakes drifted down from the sky, falling onto the rocky path around her and hissing as they hit her hair._

_Sun flakes - normal dream content._

_But then the sun flakes vanished, and everything in the world turned dark and purple and heavy. Priscilla couldn't move at a normal speed - the air felt like molasses. She pushed and pushed and didn't get anywhere, until -_

_A flash of swirled darkness and strange red light, and a low rumbling below. The ground began to split apart and a red air rose up, enveloping the girl and pulling her into the nothingness below._

_She screamed and tried to grab for the ground - the ground was her friend, he said - but she missed -_

_And all she had in her hands, she realized, was her glitchy Pokedex that Professor Rowan's field assistant gave her..._

_The screen flashed for a moment, a picture materializing._

_Priscilla squinted at it, trying to understand and recognize the picture on the screen, but then the world went dark and the darkness pulled out all the oxygen in her lungs._

-------

Priscilla gasped in air as she woke up, cold beads of sweat trickling off her face. Spasms shook her small body and she scratched wildly at her throat, whimpering and beginning to hyperventilate.

Her brown eyes bulged, showing more white than anything - and then a strange, empty gust of wind hit her and knocked her against the side of her tent.

The tent toppled over, Priscilla still inside, and as the ground outside hit her stomach, she finally came to her senses and yelped in surprise.

"_You looked somewhat insane_," Darcy said, sounding only half interested. "_I thought that if I let you keep doing what you were doing, you'd claw your throat open._"

Priscilla took a few deep breaths, pushing herself to a seated position and pulling the tent frame upright. She looked up at the floating head. "Uh," she wheezed, "thanks."

Darcy's body did a strange up-down motion, the misdreavus version of shrugging her shoulders. "O_h, it was nothing. You're not a very difficult opponent._"

Priscilla laughed weakly and pulled herself out of her sleeping bag. Dull, filtered light came in through the mesh tent ceiling, and she figured it was late enough in the morning to start moving. Plus, there was no way she'd be going back to sleep after that dream.

As she did, she saw her Pokedex lying on the ground, fallen out of her backpack the previous night when she'd been looking for the item ball containing her sleeping bag. Darcy peered down at it, interest sparking up.

"_Is that a Pokedex?_" she asked, curious and more interested than when she saved Priscilla from her post-nightmare panic attack.

"Uh, yeah," Priscilla muttered, holding it up and turning it on. She waited for the garbled text and strange picture to show up as it booted, pixel noise filling the screen..

The screen's noise disappeared as a standard misdreavus picture came up. "Misdreavus," the text read. "The screech pokemon. It loves to sneak up on people late at night..."


	10. Herbicide Team

Chapter 10: Herbicide Team

One week later, Priscilla had made it out of Eterna Forest and into Eterna City proper (after getting lost twice). It took her another week in the city before she felt that her team was really prepared to go up against Gardenia - or, at least, before she felt comfortable enough using Darcy to go up against an important opponent.

Two weeks was enough time for Priscilla to feel more comfortable in general around Darcy. Darcy still had some sort of fear-inducing air of creepiness about her, but Priscilla learned to suck it up and deal with it.

She also learned a bit more about dealing with strategy - or, rather, she didn't give Darcy orders, and Darcy won battles for her. Whenever Tor or Jet were fighting, Darcy would float next to her and tell her which attacks to order from her active pokemon, and they would win battles for her.

Or, one might say, Darcy won those battles for her, too. In any case, Priscilla's general battling success rate went up, and she figured they would at least be able to take on one gym leader.

Priscilla already wanted to take on Gardenia, since they were headed towards Eterna City and two of her pokemon had definite type advantages, Jet with offense and Tor with defense.

That, and Darcy hadn't yet lost a battle for Priscilla. She was amazing.

In fact, those were Priscilla's exact words the night before their gym match - they had reserved their gym time when they arrived in Eterna City at Darcy's command - when she spent an hour talking to her mother on her cell phone.

"She's amazing, Mom! She's won every single battle I've used her in!" Priscilla gushed, lying on her bed and smiling up at the ceiling. She managed to snag a one-person room in the attic; although the room wasn't much larger than a closet, it had a nice view (albeit a tiny window) and she didn't have to share it with anyone. Jet and Tor were already asleep in their respective holding balls, whereas Darcy floated about the room while pretending not to eavesdrop.

Priscilla didn't really notice.

"That sounds wonderful, honey," Amelia's supportive voice told her through the crackling connection. "I'm so glad you're winning more now. You're fighting Gardenia tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah! Darcy's helped me get a strategy ready for tomorrow, too," Priscilla said proudly, as though the concept of a strategy made everything much better and more impressive. "It's three-on-three, but I'm mostly gonna use Darcy."

"What about Tor and Jet?"

"Tor's not really so great against grass pokemon, and Jet doesn't know any bug attacks or flying ones," Priscilla replied, wrinkling her nose. "And Darcy's so great! She won't lose. Tor's mostly gonna be out there in case she needs a break, and Jet goes out first to confuse 'em and stuff. Darcy's gonna actually take 'em out, though. She's amazing!"

"That's wonderful," Amelia said, her voice full of the motherly smile she was probably wearing. "I'll be rooting for you! It's too bad they won't be televising it, or I'd be sure to watch every minute of it."

Priscilla laughed. "Mom, they only put good trainers on TV, not first badge fights. And they never show any at Gardenia's gym, they always put the ones against Candice or Volkner on TV, and I don't think I'm going there."

"I know, I know, I was just hoping. Well, if you ever get to your last badge or one of the more 'popular' gyms, tell me so I can record it. But I'll be cheering for you, anyway. Good luck, honey! You'll do wonderfully, I just know it."

"Thanks Mom. Bye, Mom," Priscilla said as she hung up.

Darcy floated over. "_You think I'm amazing?_"

Priscilla almost jumped. "You were listening?" she asked, almost hurt. "I thought you were just staring out the window!"

The ghost suppressed a dark giggle. "_Oh, sweetie, what's outside is not nearly as interesting as what's in. But yes, I was listening._"

"Oh." She looked down and frowned, but then brightened. "Well, yeah. You keep winning! You're so strong, and you're really cool. I'm really happy you're on my team and not on some snotty boy's team. Then I'd lose like that!" She attempted to snap her fingers, failed, and gave up.

The misdreavus stared at her for a moment, then smiled her too-wide smile. "_I'm flattered, sweetie. Now, you should get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day._"

Priscilla nodded and wriggled under her covers, already in her pajamas. "You don't sleep, do you?" she asked as she turned out the light.

Darcy still smiled, her eyes glowing and her teeth dully reflecting the glow. "_Only when I want to._"

Her trainer stared back for a moment, feeling a faint threatening feeling rise up in her throat. She shoved it back down and closed her eyes. "Make sure I don't get bad dreams," she muttered.

"_I won't, sweetie. I won't._"

-------

_She was in the same dark place - the sun flakes were gone._

_A monster appeared - "I promised. Stay away." - and the monster disappeared._

_The dark place stayed the same, and she knew something about it. Something important._

_The dark place was important, but there was something else going on - something was making her blind and making her forget._

_She looked up at a moving being, one that looked familiar in the way a fairy tale creature looks familiar; she saw it before in a book, not in real life. It moved above her, looking down at her without coming closer._

_When their gaze met, she knew something else happened in the dream. Something else that she couldn't explain, couldn't remember - everything in this dream would be forgotten. That was why it was so convoluted, so "something"-filled, so badly imagined._

_But that "something else" was terribly, terribly important to another "something", and a third "something" was either keeping her from really knowing or making her forget._

_And the moment she was about to wake up, she forgot it all._

-------

"So this is your first badge?"

Priscilla nodded, trying to keep her rapidly beating heart from worrying her too much. She stood in the grassy arena inside the Eterna City Gym, a brown-haired young woman standing in the opponent's box on the other side. The woman looked nice enough, but Priscilla figured it would be a tough fight. After all, gym leaders were not lightly chosen.

"Three-on-three," Gardenia replied, taking out one of her pokeballs. "Single battle, you get the first attack. You know the rules, right?"

Priscilla nodded again, taking out Jet's safari ball.

"Alright then," Gardenia said as she nodded towards one of her underlings, a sleepy teenager acting as the referee, "let's get started!"

Jet appeared right after Gardenia's turtwig did, and Priscilla took a deep breath. Darcy told her to confuse first.

"Supersonic," she ordered, trying to sound confident and commanding. Her voice ended up squeaking and going up an octave on the "son" part of "supersonic", but Jet got the general idea.

The bug zoomed up into the air, waiting until the opposing turtwig was right underneath before changing his wing speed to a wild, random frequency.

The turtwig growled weakly as his ears were overloaded by the loud, high-pitched, disorienting buzzing, and he tried to shake it off. His disorientation stuck, though, and Gardenia's ordered razor leave swung wildly off course.

Priscilla took another deep breath. The turtwig was confused, which was Darcy's first step, and Jet only had one more thing to do before she recalled him: "Uproar."

Jet sped up, diving down to fly just above the turtwig's head, adding his own mandible-buzzing to his wings' chaotic cacophony. The sound waves slammed into the turtwig, pushing his head into the ground again and again.

The attack didn't do that much overall, but it did enough to make Gardenia frown and look at least a little worried.

After Jet's frenzied uproar subsided, she held up his safari ball. "I'm returning Jet," she called to Gardenia. "I can switch my pokemon, right?"

Gardenia nodded, peering down at her turtwig. His confusion seemed to be lessening a bit, but she could tell he had a headache and would not be fighting accurately, especially against airborne opponents. "You can switch all you want."

"Alright. I'm using my misdreavus," she said as she tossed Darcy's pokeball onto the field. The ghost appeared in a red flash, her eyes baring down on the grass-type below.

"_He looks like our dear little Tor,_" she mused in a sing-song voice from directly above the disoriented turtle. "_It's a good thing Tor hasn't upset me enough to do this to him._"

And with that, she let out a small breath and a heavy gale of shadowy void slammed into the turtle. The ominous wind took a critical hit when his neck bent in a sickeningly incorrect direction, and the turtwig lost consciousness to avoid a more serious injury.

Gardenia glared over at Priscilla as she returned her unconscious turtwig. "Hey! Tell your ghost to maybe not try and actually kill my pokemon, okay!" She ripped her second pokeball off her belt, throwing out onto the field with a definite scowl. "I know ghosts don't give a - I mean, don't really care about death, but I'll sue if one of them actually dies. Get 'er, Cherrim!"

The closed-flower pokemon appeared, landing on her little pink feet with as much grace as one could without open arms.

"You want Jet to come out?" Priscilla asked as Darcy floated back towards her trainer.

She shook her head (which looked more like shaking her whole body due to her mostly-head appearance). _"No, but let her have this turn,_" Darcy ordered with a too-wide grin. _"I want to see the little girl's face when I drive her into the ground."_

Priscilla shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Don't hurt them."

"_Sweetie, it's a battle. Someone's going to get hurt, and I can assure you that it won't be me._"

"I know...but you heard Gardenia. Don't hurt-hurt them. Just, y'know, hurt them a little bit so we win."

"_Whatever you say, sweetie_."

By that time, Gardenia had already given her cherrim the order to use sunny day, and the light streaming in from the windows intensified. Darcy scowled, shivering a bit and retreating as best she could without leaving the arena.

On the other side of the field, the cherrim's oversized purple petals unfurled and withdrew to reveal the cheery face of the cherry blossom pokemon.

"_Well, don't you look happy,_" Darcy whispered as she drifted forward, breathing in to prepare another ominous wind.

As she let it out, though, the cherrim dashed forward, obviously much quicker than her turtwig compatriot. Her small body managed to avoid the brunt of the ominous wind, and although two of her five petals withered with the windy void, she came through just fine.

Darcy scowled. "_You pathetic little plant,_" she muttered, annoyed and quite put out.

"You really shouldn't use the same attack twice in a row," Gardenia offered, her hands on her hips and a wry grin on her face. "It gets easier to dodge when you know what's coming. But when you don't..."

The cherrim skidded to a halt and flicked her hands and petals upwards, shooting out a barrage of oddly glowing leaves towards Darcy. Darcy gasped and tried to move away, but they followed and cut her as they shot through her ethereal body.

She whined, screeching and hissing. Gardenia's cherrim winced at the sound, but stood up and smiled both cutely and menacingly.

"_Oh, you horrid thing!_" Darcy shrieked, glaring at the little grass-girl with a strange intensity Priscilla hadn't seen before.

The cherrim winced again, trying to look away. She couldn't, though - her eyes were glued to Darcy's, and soon her balanced failed her. She stumbled, dizzy and disoriented.

"Oh, she used confuse ray," Priscilla mumbled to herself, suddenly realizing she was more of a spectator in her own gym match than a real commander. "I guess we don't really need Jet."

Gardenia swore under her breath. "Cherrim, try and leech seed that thing! C'mon, snap out of it!" Priscilla thought she heard her opponent mumble about how stupid it was that gym leaders couldn't use items in first-badge matches, but the sound was muffled by distance.

The command registered with the grass-type, but Cherrim tripped as she tried to spit a seed upwards, and it fell on her own back. She howled with pain, falling and rolling around to try and get it out as a red welt appeared around the seed's stab wound.

Darcy howled with laughter, and shot out another ominous wind. This one hit Cherrim full in the head, and though her neck stayed upright, it caused another knockout.

Priscilla couldn't help but let out an excited "yes!" as Cherrim fell and Gardenia recalled her. She grinned over at Darcy, hopping up and down a bit. They were winning! They were actually winning!

Then Gardenia's roserade came out, and Darcy's own maniacal grin faded a bit. Gardenia's roserade stood up much taller than her turtwig or cherrim did, and she had a confident glow about her.

Darcy looked up at the outside world - Cherrim's sunny day still lingered and the sun shone in directly through the skylights; it was just after noontime and as bright as her midnight Eterna Forest was dark.

"What's wrong?" Priscilla asked, her heart rate rising again.

"R_oserade's a shiny stone evolution,_" Darcy hissed. "_I can't hit them as well, and I know she's going to use that sunny day to her advantage._"

"Is - is that bad?"

Roserade grinned, Gardenia ordered a weather ball, and a fiery second sun came hurtling upwards at Darcy.

The ghost screamed in pain, and Priscilla closed her eyes, shimmering after-image sun flakes dancing behind her eyelids.

---

Author's Note: For some reason, whenever I upload a chapter for this story, none of the italics are saved, but whenever I upload one for Summer Heat, they all come through. Does anybody have any ideas why? I'm baffled.


	11. Favoritism

Chapter 11: Favoritism

Darcy came crashing down, not out yet - just down. She hissed at the roserade, glaring and spitting and thrashing.

Priscilla wiped her eyes, the afterimages of the sun flakes still blinding her, and without thinking, recalled Darcy.

"You're substituting?" Gardenia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Y-yeah," the girl replied, breathless. She grabbed one of her other two pokeballs - she wasn't sure which one it was - and threw it out onto the field.

Her turtwig popped out, and she cursed herself inwardly. She just had to pick the one that had the type weakness!

"Oh, you've got a turtwig?" Gardenia stood on her tiptoes, peering over Roserade's head to see Priscilla's grass turtle. "He's kinda scrawny, but looks pretty good."

"Um, thanks."

"Roserade, use weather ball again. No need to waste the sun!"

The rosy warrior chuckled, then sent another fireball flying at Tor. He shrieked, his back raw, black, and burned. Tor limped towards Priscilla, eyes big and watery.

She bit her lip. "Sorry, Tor," she whispered, then whipped out a super potion, sacrificing her turn to heal Darcy.

She kept her eyes down - she didn't want to see Tor's face when Roserade's second (or third, depending on how one looked at it) fiery weather ball came crashing down on him.

Gardenia clucked her tongue. "I see you don't have much respect for turtwigs."

Priscilla shifted her weight as she returned her burned and unconscious Tor. "I-I..."

"Hey, hey!" The gym leader raised her hands in defense, a small grin on her face. "He's not badly hurt! It's all part of your strategy, right?"

The girl looked down again. "Yeah..." She threw her main pokeball out onto the field, revealing the same misdreavus that hovered over the battlefield only a couple of turns prior. "I'm putting my misdreavus out on the battlefield again," she informed the gym leader, stating the obvious just in case she was supposed to.

"I can see that. Roserade, weather b-"

"DODGE IT!" Priscilla shrieked, causing everyone in the gym to wince a bit.

Darcy took the chance to roll her eyes while Roserade stared at Priscilla for a moment, dumbfounded. "_Oh, as if you had to say it._"

She shot up above Roserade, blowing an ominous wind upwards towards the skylight. The black air hung around the windows, unsure of its target and darkening the gym. Darcy grinned her too-wide grin, hanging in the air high above her opponent.

The roserade panicked and sent her weather ball much too low and much to weakly, causing it to fizzle out before it even had a chance of reaching Darcy. She then stood there, shifting her weight and staring up at the grayish skylights, clearly uncomfortable.

"_How do you like your precious sunlight now?_" Darcy whispered, causing Roserade to shiver. Priscilla had to suppress her own shiver - somehow, Darcy seemed much scarier when she kept her voice low and quiet. "_You aren't...scared...are you?_" She smiled even wider. "_Are you?_"

The roserade whimpered, scratching at and covering her ears with her rosy hands.

"Darcy," Priscilla mumbled, unable to bring her voice up. "C-can you use...p-psywave?"

Darcy didn't answer - she just shot down from the sky, a shock wave heading in front of her that slammed into Roserade and sent her smashing into the arena only centimeters below. The shiny stone evolution didn't even try to block it - she just covered her face and her ears and waited for it all to end.

And it did end - Gardenia stared for a moment, then returned her pokemon. "You've defeated all three of my pokemon," she stated monotonously. "It is my...great pleasure...to give you the Forest Badge..."

-----

"I can't believe we won!" Priscilla chattered happily as she sat down on the Eterna City park bench, her three pokemon hanging around her in a small three-point circle. She held her green Forest Badge up in the afternoon sunlight. "Look! I have a badge! We! We have a badge! This is so cool!"

"_I'm glad you feel that way, sweetie,_" Darcy replied with a half smile from her spot in Priscilla's shadow. "_But do you really have to celebrate in broad daylight? You know I prefer nighttime._"

"Sorry, Darcy," she put the badge away and stood up, careful to keep her shadow on her ghost. "You're right - I should probably take a nap or something. Maybe we can train more at night? Or, wait - let's take this night off, since, you know, we did just win a badge!"

"_That sounds wonderful, sweetie,_" came the ghost's reply, her wide smile across her face and her creepy red eyes locked on her trainer.

Meanwhile, Jet and Tor hung behind Priscilla, staring at her back. Tor's jaw seemed to quiver as he tried to fend off Priscilla's obvious enthusiasm and keep his jealous scowl planted on his face, and Jet just stared without any clear emotions.

Priscilla continued to ignore them. "Do you wanna do anything to celebrate?" she asked, her full attention on Darcy.

"_Maybe just a walk_," she answered, then added: "_In the moonlight._"

"Sounds cool." Finally, Priscilla turned to her other two pokemon. "You guys wanna come?"

Tor shook his head. "_No. I'm tired. I'll sleep. You and Darcy can go walking. I'll sleep._"

"Oh...Jet?"

The bug stared at Priscilla for a moment. In his eyes, there was no real reason for him to go on her and Darcy's little "celebratory moonlit walk" - why did she even bother asking? He and Tor were all but useless at night - they learned that much from their time in that infernal forest - and neither of them enjoyed it at all because they were naturally diurnal. Why? Why did she ask? What did she think? He knew he wasn't one to ask, but was she really that stupid?

"_No. I no want to,_" he replied, stumbling over his words and hearing them awkwardly translated to his trainer. She couldn't even understand his own speech without that ghost.

"Oh." Priscilla frowned for a split second, then shrugged it off. "Okay."

-----

"It's kinda cold out here," Priscilla said as she and Darcy passed under yet another streetlight. The spring night air, not yet warm from the summer sun heating the earth, bit at her skin. Maybe only wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants was a bad idea...at least her hair, usually up in a ponytail, was loose and covered her neck, granting her one patch of skin that didn't have to suffer from the cold.

The moonlight that came from the waxing moon fell on the tall stone buildings, casting silver shadows that flickered as the trees laden with flowers and leaves swirled in the wind. Darcy seemed to glow herself, absorbing the moonlight in her ethereal body and holding it like a purple-black cage. "_It feels lovely to me._"

"Yeah, but you're a ghost. You're supposed to like nighttime."

"_That is true. Are you...not enjoying this?_"

Priscilla shrugged. "I'm okay. It's cool."

"_Quite literally, in fact._"

"Ha-ha, very funny."

Darcy glanced down for a moment. "_You mean you actually know the meaning of 'literally'? I thought your vocabulary didn't include four-syllable words_."

Priscilla pouted, kicking the ground with her grey sneaker. "Shut up. I'm not stupid."

A playful-yet-creepy smile. "_Just young?_"

"Duh." A few moments of silence, and then: "You were awesome in that gym battle, Darcy!"

The misdreavus laughed shrilly, causing Priscilla's excited smile to falter a bit. "_So you keep telling me! Sweetie, I'm glad you're happy about the battle, but do you really have to keep bringing it up? I told you I'd win you three badges, didn't I?_"

The girl shrugged, her excitement fading a bit in response. "I dunno. I'm just...I dunno. I never won any badges b'fore..."

"_I understand, sweetie. Really, I'm flattered. It pleases me to no end that I'm your,_" her eyes flashed in the darkness, "_favorite._"

Priscilla stopped walking, her heart tightening for a second. "What did you say?" She looked up at the trees where she thought she heard Darcy. A blackness, shaped with the pointy leaves and slight tinge of yellow-pink from the streetlights, hung above her. She couldn't see the ghost, but she felt almost certain that was where she was hovering. "What...?"

"_Oh, nothing, nothing,_" came Darcy's reply from the opposite direction. Priscilla whirled around and came face-to-face with her grinning, devilish Darcy in the direct glare of the blue neon from the Eterna City Pokemon Mart. "_Just thinking out loud. Don't worry about it, sweetie, don't worry at all._"

"Oh. Um, okay." Priscilla turned again, walking a little slower. "I think I want to go back now."

"_Are you tired?_" Darcy's voice sounded a little concerned, but Priscilla could imagine a smile on her face all the same - she stayed facing away from the ghost, just in case. "_Do you feel okay? Are you cold?_" Her voice came closer - if she could breathe, Priscilla knew she would have felt Darcy's breath on the back of her neck despite her protective layer of non-ponytailed brown hair. "_Sweetie, tell me. Tell me what's wrong._"

"I'm just...done. I want to go back and go to sleep," she whispered sullenly. "Maybe I don't feel good. I dunno."

Priscilla's stomach flipped and knotted as she felt her hair brushed aside by Darcy's body, though she couldn't feel Darcy's direct touch at all. She still kept her eyes focused steely on the stone apartment building a bit forward and to the right, locking her vision on the building's grey-and-yellow exterior in the moonlight and streetlight glow. Even though she knew Darcy's comment, the one that made it into the back of her head even though her ears didn't quite hear it right, was completely and utterly true, she didn't want to admit it; and for that, she had to keep herself from seeing Darcy at all costs.

Because seeing was believing, and that would make it true - that Darcy was her favorite even though Jet was her starter, and that it was her fault that Tor took the brunt of the gym battle even though he didn't get any chance to prove himself. Even though he would have been her strongest pokemon if Darcy hadn't come along - he might have even become her favorite because of his strength and his attitude, even though she still would have felt guilty because Jet was her starter.

Wasn't your starter supposed to be your favorite? Wasn't it?

...Wasn't it?

Priscilla suppressed a small scream when Darcy slid in front of her, blocking her savior view of the Eterna City brownstone. The ghost smiled, though Priscilla couldn't really match an emotion to the pulled mouth. "_Well, if you're sure, we can go back now,_" Darcy told her trainer, her voice soft and creepy and penetrating to Priscilla's soul.

She whimpered. "Okay."

Darcy smiled, staying a bit too close. "_That's my girl. Tell me if you feel too cold, sweetie, I don't want to you get pneumonia, or...worse..._"

Priscilla sidestepped a bit, trying to increase the distance between them. A small voice in the back of her head - one that sounded a bit like Jet and a bit like Tor and a bit like her friends from school and a bit like her mother and a bit like Zenith and a bit like someone she'd never met - told her to run, to run away from Darcy and never look back and never, ever be at all nice to her again.

But she couldn't get more than a step away from her. Something inside her wouldn't leave Darcy behind, no matter how much she might or might not have wanted to.

"_Sweetie, don't walk so far away from me. It makes me feel lonely._"

"S-sorry." She reluctantly stepped closer.

"_Sweetie?_" Darcy peered into Priscilla's eyes in her peripheral vision. "_Pri-scil-la, sweetie, you aren't scared of me, are you?_" Priscilla didn't answer. "_I'm sure you know the reason I won that gym battle so quickly - that roserade's fear helped me win. I feed off of fear. It's my nature._" She smiled either kindly or menacingly, Priscilla couldn't tell which. "_I can tell when you feel fear, sweetie._"

Priscilla almost tripped, half-stumbling into a bush. "Oh. Um, I'm not scared."

"_Yes,_" came Darcy's soft whisper from behind. "_Yes, sweetie, yes you are. You are completely and utterly terrified of me._"

And then, before Priscilla could say anything, a horrible shriek of terror, one ten times more afraid that Priscilla could ever be, shook the night.


	12. The Twisted Corpse

Chapter 12: The Twisted Corpse

"What was that?" Priscilla shrieked, forgetting her fear of Darcy and whipping her head around. Brownstone apartment buildings were all around them, but she could see no clear sign of who screamed.

"_I think it came from in this apartment,_" Darcy replied, floating over to a floor-level window nearby. She pressed her face up against the glass, pushing her eyes through the solid windowpane into the apartment itself. "_Yes. I believe someone is dying - oh, yes, there they are._" She pulled her face out of the window and floated back over to Priscilla, clearly indifferent. "_Shall we continue with our walk?_"

"D-dying?" Priscilla gasped, already starting for the window. She almost slammed her own face into the glass, forgetting for a moment that her body, unlike Darcy's, actually was solid.

Darcy sighed and moved over slightly to follow Priscilla. "_Of Poltergeist's Disease, I believe. But really, sweetie, it's none of our business and -_"

But already Priscilla's hands were in fists and banging on the window, only half-aware that such an act might break the class and cause more damage than help. "Hello!" Priscilla shrieked. "Hello in there! Do you need help? Are you okay? Are you-"

She almost tumbled inside when a young man pulled the window up, his eyes wild and teary. "Yes! Do you have a phone?" he gasped, and behind him, Priscilla could see another man doubled over and choking on something. "Please - please call the ambulance, he's -"

Priscilla didn't need to be told twice - if there was one thing her elementary school made sure to pound into its students minds, it was what to dial in an emergency. She punched in the emergency number and waited for what seemed like much too long - the man had already abandoned her at the window and was with the other man, the dying one - and finally someone picked up. "This is emergency services," a woman's voice stated on the other end.

"Yes! There's - there's a man who's really hurt - I think he's dying and - and - you need to get here! Please!"

The woman then tried to calm her down, asking her questions about location and symptoms. Priscilla's mind began to swim at that point, only becoming vaguely aware of the healthy man telling her that the dying man had something wrong in his neck...something about bleeding on the inside. She heard herself relaying the address, and then there was more waiting. More waiting while the man inside screamed and yelled and choked, and then finally hearing the ambulance come blaring up, all lit up and full of paramedics who stormed the building.

She watched from her spot on the pavement - she couldn't remember when, but at some point she lost the ability to stand and had to sit - as the dying man was rushed on a stretcher into the ambulance and the other man, the healthy one in tears and on the phone with someone, rushed in after him.

A small whisper from behind her head told her to take that chance and leave, and having no judgment to do otherwise, she listened to it and began to walk away.

The whisper's body, the ghostly floating head with the red bead necklace, came along with her, and it was only when she felt herself staring at Darcy for much too long did Priscilla become fully aware of her surroundings.

"D-darcy! What - what's going on - where's? Where's the man and -?"

"_Shh, shh,_" Darcy whispered, floating closer to Priscilla's face as if to lay a finger on her worried mouth. "_You would have gotten far too involved with that, sweetie, so I had to make you leave. You were almost in hysterics._"

Priscilla began to shiver. "Where are we?"

"_Near the southern border of Eterna City._"

The girl stopped walking. "The - the south? That's in the opposite direction of the Pokemon Center!" She turned and began to jog nervously in the other direction, then stopped and turned back to look at Darcy. "That man...the one back at the apartment. The one who was dying. Do you think he...?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "_Sweetie, he was dying of Poltergeist's and he had the final symptom. I'm fairly certain that if he is not dead at this current moment, he soon will be,_" she said in the most indifferent tone Priscilla could imagine from someone talking about a dying man.

"The...final...symptom?" Priscilla choked, her eyes widening and her heartbeat accelerating. Her mental image of the dying man flickered, replaced for a moment by her mother, doubled over and grasping at her neck, scratching incessantly at her throat. Priscilla shuddered, her own neck feeling itchy and dry. Her fingers rose up on their own, her nails clawing at the skin around her throat - it was like there were maggots under her skin, crawling around just under enough so she couldn't reach them. No matter how much she scratched, she couldn't seem to -

But then a blast of dark, chilling wind hit her body, throwing her down and snapping her out of her madness. "_Stop that silly scratching,_" Darcy snapped, glaring down at Priscilla from a meter or two above. Priscilla froze, cowering in the dim shadow of her ghost pokemon silhouetted by the streetlights. "_Good girl._"

Priscilla started to stand up. "That - that wasn't a symptom, was it?" she muttered, thinking about her itchy neck but keeping her hands at her side. "Itching my neck? I'm fine, right?"

Darcy sighed, clearly tired of Priscilla's antics. "_I'm sure it wasn't a symptom. Your eyes haven't been bleeding, correct?_"

"No..."

"_If you don't get the first symptom, you don't get the other three._" She looked at Priscilla in her peripheral vision and grinned. "_First you get the bleeding eyes - the poltergeist has stolen your sight. Then you get the scratching under your skin - the poltergeist has stolen your sanity. The third is the -_"

"Voices and the ringing in your ears," Priscilla whispered, staring blankly ahead of her. "The poltergeist has stolen your hearing. Then the fourth symptom, the last one, is the blood clot in your neck."

"_Your jugular,_" Darcy corrected.

"The poltergeist," Priscilla gulped, "has choked you and stolen your life."

"_Well, aren't you well-versed,_" Darcy whispered, her characteristic too-wide grin once again on her face.

Priscilla looked down, avoiding eye contact. "My mom's got it."

"_Oh, I see. Which symptom?_"

"S-still the first." Priscilla looked up again, horrified at a new worry. "She - she didn't get the next one, did she?"

Darcy shrugged. "_It can take up to a year for the scratching to start if the patient has talented enough doctors. It's only really after the third that death is really imminent._"

Priscilla hugged herself, trying not to cry. She didn't want to have only Darcy to comfort her, even though she still managed to convince herself that Darcy was her friend. Not only that - Darcy was her ticket to three badges, which meant that Darcy was the way she'd be able to get to the highest point in Sinnoh and ultimately save her mother.

"I miss my mom," she whimpered, taking a shaky step forward.

But before anything else could happen, another cry shook the night, and a small body tumbled out of a nearby bush onto the pavement in front of Priscilla. She shrieked, jumping back - the body had deep gashes around its neck where dark blood oozed out, staining the sidewalk and gurgling in the night.

She fell, scooting away from it. The corpse - it had to be dead, as it had a slit throat - looked somewhat like a picture she'd seen in books and magazines, but it looked wrong. Wrong in the same way Tor's picture looked in her Pokedex.

It had two extra legs and a much too thin body, two mouths and five eyes, bald patches and ugly yellow flowers that twisted and sagged. But the small snout and fading greenery along its back still managed to allow Priscilla to recognize it and give it a name.

"Shay-Shaymin?" she gasped, panic rising. That was a dead pokemon - a dead _legendary_ pokemon.

Darcy floated forward and down, staring at the corpse with a curious eye. "_He died recently; the blood is rather fresh,_" she observed. "_That's interesting...very interesting...I always thought he'd live longer than this._"

"Wha-what?" Priscilla gasped, trying to get up and stumble around the dead pokemon.

Her misdreavus paused for a second, then released a series of ominous winds and psywaves downward onto the corpse, wrecking it further. Blood exploded outward as various limbs were torn away, leaving the mangled body completely unrecognizable.

Priscilla stumbled backward, bile rising up in her throat. "What - what are you doing?" she gasped.

"_I merely made sure nobody would mistake dear little Shyama for someone else,_" Darcy explained calmly as she floated away from the corpse. "_It would cause unnecessary panic if the people of Eterna City thought Shaymin had died. Really, sweetie, it was all for the best. Now, it really is best if we leave before someone thinks we killed him._"

Priscilla nodded, her vision blurred by water. She stumbled after Darcy, wordlessly following her back along various streets until they reached the Pokemon Center, where she fell into her assigned bed and scared herself to sleep.

-----

_She was back in the dark world without the sun flakes. She shivered - though she'd only seen the sun flakes once (it was once, right? She couldn't remember), she knew their absence meant that the darkness had consumed her, and she was afraid._

_"Zenith?" she asked, taking a wary step on a strange walkway, one made of stone that hung suspended in midair. "Zenith, where are you? Zenith? Zenith? Where are you? Please tell me, Zenith! Where are you? Where are you? Please..."_

_Then another creature met her - one that was a mangled form of someone she recognized but couldn't place. "Where is it," the thing hissed, crawling towards her in a way that normal creatures didn't crawl. "Where did you put it, you wretched girl?"_

_"I - I don't know what you're talking about," she answered, panicking and trying to run. But the air had closed in around her, and no matter how hard she tried to turn and run away, all she could do was keep her eyes locked forward on the oncoming creature._

_"Where did you put it?"_

_"I don't know!"_

_"Where, where? You wretched girl!"_

_"I don't know! I don't have it! Leave me alone!"_

_The thing shrieked and lunged._

_"Zenith, help me!" she cried as the thing's twisted hands closed around her throat. "Help - urk!" The thing's hands were choking her, robbing her of air._

_Her head swam, she couldn't breathe, and soon the world around her disappeared._

-----

Priscilla woke with a start as her blanket was ripped off of her, revealing her shorts-and-tank-top sleeping attire to the bare morning air. She realized her hands were around her throat and she dropped them, shivering both in cold and fear.

"_You were acting strangely again,_" Darcy commented, dropping the blanket out of her mouth. "_I'm glad you woke before you killed yourself._"

"What's...what's going on?" Priscilla gasped, beginning to tear up. "I don't get it! What's going on?"

"_Nothing you need to worry about, sweetie,_" Darcy soothed, floating a bit too near Priscilla's cheek. "_Now, are you planning on leaving Eterna City today? If I were you, I would strongly consider leaving this morning. Hearthome City is quite lovely during the late spring and early summer, and I am quite certain I can secure you a second badge there._"

Priscilla hugged her stomach. "Y-yeah. Let's go. To Hearthome. L-let me just get some breakfast..."

She got dressed slowly, not bothering to let out her other two pokemon or return Darcy. A blue t-shirt and pair of jeans found their way onto her body, she tugged on her hiking boots each on the wrong foot at first, and she forgot to put her hair into a ponytail, but she managed to pack up and leave the room the way she found it.

In her mind, all she could see was the mangled "shaymin" corpse and the man dying of Poltergeist's, both of them leading to a horribly imagined image of her own mother, dead and bloody and staring up at her -

"Pancakes?" She looked over at two boys - or, at least, she assumed one of them was a boy - seated at a table in the dining hall. The older one - the one she knew was a boy - held out a plate of pancakes. "I got extra," he explained with a sheepish smile. "This kid helped."

Priscilla turned her head to look at a familiar young trainer, a boy her age - or maybe a girl, she couldn't tell. He - or she - looked up, his - or her - face looking somewhat dejected, like he - she - just lost his - her appetite. "Hey."

"I know you!" Priscilla exclaimed, pointing at the young trainer. "You're the boy - girl - trainer that I met outside the gym!"

The trainer in question glared at her, looking rather perturbed that Priscilla couldn't guess the correct pronoun. "Uh, yeah. D'you beat the gym?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I did."

"With what pokemon?"

"Um...well, I used my yanma and turtwig, but it was mostly my misdreavus," she said, her smile faltering as she realized Darcy was floating right behind her. "Darcy. She's my...best pokemon. She really helped with...Gardenia's final pokemon."

The trainer raised an eyebrow. "Well, uh...see ya," he - she - mumbled, getting up. Priscilla thought she heard him mumble, "why couldn't Carlita've been a ghost?", but she was sure she just imagined it.

"_Sweetie, we should leave,_" Darcy whispered after Priscilla managed to down a pancake and some milk. "_Do you have everything?_"

"Uh, yeah," she muttered, leaving her plate on the table and walking out of the Pokemon Center. Once Darcy opened her mouth, she lost her appetite. "I'm good."

They made their way north, passing by a statue garden. Priscilla stopped and stared, bowing slightly at the sight of the great legendary pokemon of Sinnoh. "Give me good luck," she whispered.

"_Sweetie, why are you stopping?_" Darcy asked. "_We're almost out of the city._"

"I just - you know, wanted them," she motioned towards the statues, "to give me good luck."

Darcy laughed and Priscilla flinched. "_How superstitious of you. Really, why do you need their help? After all, aren't you working for,_" her eyes flashed, "_Zenith?_"

Priscilla stared at her ghost. "Y-yeah, I g-guess..."

"_Then you shouldn't worry,_" Darcy said with a too-wide grin. "_Zenith would never let you down._"

"I guess." Priscilla shifted her weight. "Um, should we go?"

"_Yes, that would be wise. Lead the way, sweetie,_" the misdreavus whispered, suddenly behind Priscilla.

The girl shuddered, but nevertheless began to walk out of Eterna City much quicker than she thought she would.

"_Lead the way..._"

---

Author's Note: This is the end of the first story arc! (Arc 1 - "The Ghost") Also, there were some references in this chapter. The scene with the dying man is an homage to a scene in the movie _And The Band Played On. _(I don't really like that movie much, but that particular scene really stuck with me.) The scratching at the neck is a reference to the Japanese anime _Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni_. And, last but not least, the trainer eating pancakes at the end of the chapter is the nameless narrator ("NamNar") from Digital Skitty's _Pedestal_, which is the other story done for our graduation pact. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far! The next chapter will begin Arc 2 - "The Grimoire."


	13. Lyrisa

Chapter 13: Lyrisa

"That took forever!" Priscilla whined as she collapsed outside the eastern mouth to one of the many underground passageways through the expansive Mount Coronet. It had taken the group two full days to get from the western mouth to the eastern, and Priscilla never thought she'd be quite so happy to see the dying sun silhouetting the mountains she had just left.

"_Two days!_" Tor chattered happily, feeding off of Priscilla's relief. His brief feelings of contempt and mistrust due to his role in Priscilla's win against Gardenia a week prior were long forgotten. "_Two days! Forever!_"

Priscilla grinned feebly at her turtwig, grateful for his shared enthusiasm. "Yeah. It felt like forever!"

"_Forever!_"

"I know!"

"_For-ever!_"

"Yeah!"

"_For-mmph!_"

Tor's chanting disappeared as Darcy floated down in front of him, cutting him off. She gave him a short smile, one that would have been wider and fuller if it weren't for the fact that against all odds, even she felt tired from the trek inside the mountain. "_Now, now, little Tor, let's not get our trainer all riled up again. She will need her rest if she wants to make it down the mountain into Celestic Town before tomorrow's nightfall._"

Jet landed on a nearby rock, one right behind Priscilla's head, and buzzed his agreement in a terse: "_Yes._"

Priscilla stared at Darcy. "Is it bad if we don't get to Celestic Town in time?"

"_Oh, it isn't that bad, sweetie,_" Darcy crooned, floating over to her trainer. "_But the trail from the mountain down to Celestic is rather treacherous at night, and I don't want you rolling off a cliff or hurting yourself in the dark. The sun sets behind the mountains, and that makes the evenings rather dark and dangerous for little girls wandering about._"

"Oh," Priscilla muttered, giving a quick glance to the already-disappeared sunset. The mountains, the very mountain range she hoped to scale once she had her required three-badge entry ticket, looked especially foreboding in the too-dark twilight. "I guess you got a point. Um, should I...set up camp, or something?"

"_That would be a good idea, sweetie,_" Darcy replied in her sweet, sweet voice. She hovered over a medium-sized leveled rock sunken into the mountainside, one surrounded by a natural guardrail of other rocks and boulders. "_How about this as a campsite? It looks about as safe as any area nearby, and you won't have to move but a little to get to it from where you are now._"

"Yeah," Priscilla said, sliding down from her current spot onto the indicated rock. "Looks good." She let her backpack slide off her shoulders, then went about taking out all the item capsules that held the things she needed to make up her campsite.

Ten minutes later, Priscilla was squeezing into her tent, one that barely fit in between the "guardrail" and the cliffside bordering the miniscule campsite. Tor came in after her and settled down in the small space between her sleeping bag and the edge of the tent, while Jet elected to simply sleep inside his safari ball.

She was about to slither into her sleeping back next to Tor when she realized Darcy hadn't come in. Priscilla tugged down the zipper door of her tent and poked her head out, seeing the ghost floating just off the edge of the small precipice. "Hey, Darcy, what're you doing out there?"

The ghost turned and smiled. "_Oh, nothing. I'll be in in a little bit, if you wish - you know I rarely sleep._"

"Oh," Priscilla said, "yeah. Um...should I leave the door open, or something?"

"_No, no, that's quite alright. Why don't you go to sleep, sweetie? You look so tired from our time in the cave, and I can get through the door just fine when it's shut,_" Darcy replied, still smiling. "_Did you forget that I am not quite as solid as you or your other pokemon?_"

"Um, no, I, uh, didn't forget," Priscilla lied. "So...you want me to close the door?"

"_Yes. I wouldn't want you to get a chill while trying to sleep._"

"Oh. Okay."

Priscilla pulled her head back inside the tent and zipped it up, feeling a mixture of loneliness and relief without Darcy in view. She looked down at Tor, who had already snuggled next to her sleeping back, and wriggled down next to him.

"_Darcy?_" Tor asked, looking up sleepily.

"She's outside. I think she's fine by herself," Priscilla mumbled with a yawn. "She said to just go to sleep."

"_Okay!_"

"Good night, Tor."

"_Good night!_"

-----

_Priscilla knew she was dreaming - it was the first time in a long time that she seemed to be having a somewhat lucid dream._

_She was back in Jubilife City, but everything around her moved too slowly and looked too blurry and gray to be real. That was how she knew she was dreaming._

_Ahead of her stood a trainer that looked really familiar, a child her age wearing baggy clothing that concealed any distinguishable features. The trainer stared back at her with eyes Priscilla couldn't see._

_They just stood there, staring._

_"What's your name?" Priscilla asked._

_"I don't have one," the trainer replied in a voice that Priscilla recognized from her waking adventures, but couldn't place or give any identity to. It was, for all intent and purpose, a soundless voice. "Call me Namnar."_

_"Oh. Okay." Priscilla paused. "Are you important?"_

_"Not to you," Namnar replied, taking out a pokeball. "Just to me. You're pretty lame in my story, too - I'm super awesome, and you're just...I dunno. Like an extra in a movie. That's how it works."_

_"Um, alright. Do we have to battle?" Priscilla looked down and realized her pokeballs were gone. "I don't have any pokemon."_

_"Nah, we don't. I just need an opinion," the trainer said with more than a hint of "I'm better than you" immaturity. Namnar let the pokeball fall, and a shroomish appeared. "Does Carlita freak you out, too, or is it just me?"_

_Priscilla watched as the shroomish started to dance - she twirled around, hopped a few times, then tumbled about. Then she switched her dance to a repeating hop, flopping her hands about as near to her forehead as she could get them, then grabbed a leek from nowhere and spun it in a circle. After a few counts of eight, she tossed the leek away and began to perform another choreographed dance._

_As Priscilla watched, she began to feel herself slip out of consciousness. Only Namnar's: "Oh, by the way - I got your jacket," and the faint sound of a woman talking came to her ears..._

-----

"He's got my jacket!" Priscilla gasped as she sat up. She frowned. "He...she? She's got my jacket?"

Tor looked up, bleary-eyed and tired. "Tur?" he asked, either saying turtwig language gibberish that Darcy couldn't translate or saying something that the ghost simply didn't translate.

Either way, Priscilla ignored it and lunged for her bag. (Tor, on the other hand, just went back to sleep.) She dug through it for awhile, realizing that her jacket, the red one with the turtles embroidered along the edges and on the pocket - the jacket she had a habit of losing - was gone.

"Namnar," Priscilla muttered. "Namnar's got my jacket. Stupid Namnar."

"...Yes, I'm sure he's got it."

Priscilla almost jumped at the sound of someone else's voice. She paused, dropping down onto her sleeping bag and listening.

The voice kept talking - it'd been talking when Priscilla woke up, she realized, but she hadn't noticed it: "He has to have it, Darcy, or else where would it be?"

Priscilla's eyes widened. By that moment, she knew three things about the voice outside: the first, that it was undoubtedly female; the second, that she knew Darcy and was probably in league with her; and third, that she sounded exactly like Priscilla.

The woman outside was talking _with Priscilla's voice._

"_There is no way,_" Darcy replied in a stern voice that made Priscilla cringe. Even though Priscilla hated Darcy's too-sweet tone, the one that she used with Priscilla, she soon realized a serious tone was worse. Darcy, it seemed, meant business. "_He may know something, but he doesn't have the grimoire._"

"How can you be so sure, Darcy? Where else could it be? Who else could have it?"

"_Someone. Someone who isn't Professor Rowan._"

"Professor Rowan?" Priscilla whispered to herself, confused.

"But he had a hand in the Galactic Incident! He was the one who gave the starters and the Pokedexes to the Pokedex Holders! That has to mean something."

"_For the Galactic Incident, it did mean something. For this, it means nothing._"

"But don't you think..."

"_Don't I think what, Ly-ri-sa?_" Priscilla cringed again - the other woman, the one that sounded like Priscilla but was named Lyrisa, got the same treatment as whenever Darcy said Priscilla's name.

"I'm not sure. I've been rather removed during all of this."

"_Of course you have. You're only...what was it, again? Tenth?_" Priscilla could imagine a sneer on Darcy's face, one full of contempt and haughty authority.

"Actually," Lyrisa said coldly, "I'm fifth."

"_Fifth?_" Darcy hissed. "_Badr! What of him?_"

"He's fourth. You did say Shyama died, correct? When you were in Eterna City?"

"_Yes, I did...but then wouldn't Georgiana be fifth?_"

"Darcy, Georgiana died. I thought you knew."

Darcy was silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Darcy. I knew you -"

"_Oh, don't get sentimental with me, I felt nothing towards her. _Nothing._ Now, who else is dead? How on earth could you move up so quickly?_"

"I know Hallam and Farran are dead, and if Badr is still alive than Kynaston would have to be dead, too."

"_Just those three? And Shyama, of course._"

"No - Beatrice, too. She's dead." Lyrisa paused. "I'm fairly certain Wystan is still alive, though."

"_Beatrice is dead? How can that be?_"

"She was the first to die, Darcy."

"_Impossible!_"

"Apparently not. You should be careful - they've already killed half of us, at least...I can't be sure without the grimoire."

Darcy scoffed. "_What of the outsides? Are they still alive_?"

"I know three have already died, but I do not know which."

"_The psychics?_"

"No - I'm sure someone in Sinnoh would have noticed. Their anchor should be -"

The conversation stopped suddenly, and Priscilla realized that in her attempt to eavesdrop, she clenched her fist around part of her sleeping bag, making a synthetic ruffling sound. She froze, but it was too late - they heard her.

Priscilla slowly sunk down into a fake sleeping position, trying to look like she had rolled out of her sleeping bag while asleep. As she tried to stay silent herself, she managed to hear the soft rolling gravel and footsteps of someone her size stealing down the mountainside and running away.

"_Pri-sci-lla?_" Darcy asked from the other side of the tent, her voice no longer stern and serious but sickly sweet. Priscilla pulled her head up, trying to keep her eyes half-closed to look like she'd just woken up. At that moment, Darcy's head came in through the wall of the tent, her eyes staring into Priscilla and, Priscilla imagined, through her ruse. "_I'm so sorry, sweetie, did I wake you?_"

"Hmm?" Priscilla mumbled, pushing herself up and staggering a bit, pretending to not be wide awake. "Yeah. Were you talkin' or somethin'?"

Judging from Darcy's lack of reaction, she either bought Priscilla's fake sleepiness or was faking her own ignorance. "_Oh, my, I did wake you! Sweetie, I apologize - I was only talking to myself outside. It gets so terribly lonely while everyone is asleep, and I sometimes end up talking to the night air. I'm so sorry, it's such a bad habit._"

"No...that's okay..."

"_Did you hear what I was saying, or do you think you were dreaming?_" Darcy asked, her eyes gleaming in the filtered moonlight.

Priscilla thought for a moment. She couldn't say anything about the woman that sounded like her, or Darcy might turn angry. She knew she had to lie about something, but what if, for this one instance, she (mostly) told the truth? "I heard some people talking. One guy - or maybe a girl - had my jacket." She frowned. "I think I left my jacket. I think it's back in Eterna City, and some...trainer named Namnar has it."

Her ghost chuckled. "_Namnar? What a silly name!_"

Priscilla couldn't help but grin a little herself. "Yeah. Weirdo."

Darcy pulled her head out of the tent a bit, but left her face inside, staring at Priscilla. "_If you wish to talk, I'll be outside. We wouldn't want to wake little Tor, would we?_"

Beside Priscilla, Tor mumbled incoherently, twitching a little but clearly sound asleep. Priscilla nodded and, realizing she probably wouldn't fall asleep after overhearing the conversation, quietly opened the door to the tent and wriggled out.

Darcy floated above the drop from where Priscilla's tent stood, and Priscilla pulled herself to a sitting position on one of the flat rock outcroppings just below, letting her feet dangle over the edge. Above them was a sea of stars lighting the night sky, a full glittering blanket despite the nearly full moon.

"_Now,_" Darcy began, tearing Priscilla's attention away from the beautiful sky, "_what were you really dreaming about back in the tent?_"

Priscilla's stomach lurched. She'd been telling the truth about her dream, with the only exception that she'd been talking to Namnar instead of hearing someone else talk to him (or her, she still didn't know). Of course, she omitted everything else, especially about hearing the real conversation outside, but why would Darcy choose her description of the dream to doubt?

"I was telling the truth!" Priscilla stammered, clutching the rock edge as Darcy moved closer. "I swear - that's what I was dreaming about!"

"_Really? Is that so?_" Darcy whispered, her face nearly touching Priscilla's. "_Then what were you lying about back in the tent, sweetie?_"

Priscilla gulped.

"_Tell me, sweetie,_" Darcy hissed, her smile widening. "_Why don't you tell me what you really know._"

---

Author's Note: As I said before, this chapter is the first chapter of Arc 2: "The Grimoire". Tell me what you think in a review! Also, the dream Priscilla has is a reference/slight crossover to Digital Skitty's story Pedestal, which was her half of the graduation pact. One of the requirements was to have a dancing shroomish. (I sort of stole hers.) As for her jacket, I used to have a red jacket with a turtle embroidered on a pocket that I'd always lose.


	14. Celest Celestic

Chapter 14: Celest-Celestic

"There..." Priscilla trailed off, not really knowing where to start or what to say or what to try and lie about. Darcy just floated there, her face millimeters away from Priscilla's and her eyes glittering in the starlight. "I mean - I heard that people...they were...um..."

"_Yes?_" Darcy whispered, floating closer, if that was even possible.

Priscilla gulped. She could barely remember what she said before, much less try and stay consistent about it with her lies. Her head swam, and her dream conversation with NamNar bled with the words spoken by Darcy and the person who spoke with Priscilla's voice. "I - I heard..."

Darcy's eyes widened, and Priscilla's stomach dropped. She figured Darcy was beginning to use some sort of attack on her, maybe something like hypnosis, but she couldn't think straight enough to figure out what it was. "_Tell me the truth, sweetie, or I shall be cross._" Priscilla wobbled a bit. "_Very. Cross. Indeed._"

"Um - something about...I heard something about..." It was a word Priscilla heard before, but didn't know the meaning of. It sounded like a very grim word, but she couldn't remember the second part. A grim thing. A grim...grim...

And just like that, Priscilla remembered what the word meant, though she couldn't remember the exact term itself.

"A book," Priscilla blurted, suddenly closing her eyes. She would have just looked away from Darcy's stare, but she didn't think there was anywhere to look without seeing those two-toned eyes staring through her peripheral vision. "I heard somebody say something about a book. One that's - that's missing."

She could almost hear Darcy narrow her eyes. "_What kind of book?_"

This, at least, Priscilla didn't know the answer to. "Somebody's book is missing," she said, opening her eyes just a little. The misdreavus had moved backwards a bit, giving her trainer some breathing room. Priscilla tried to relax a bit. "I think it's an important book. I think the, um, guy - girl? The person who has my jacket took...my book," Priscilla added, trying to lie again. When Darcy looked suspicious, Priscilla realized that might not have been the best of ideas.

And that was when a wild kricketune zoomed through, screeching and wildly swinging its arms.

Priscilla had just enough time to gasp "x-scissor!" when the bug's spindly arms slashed through Darcy, knocking her through Priscilla.

Priscilla screamed and hid her head, hearing the bug slam into the rock and then zoom upward. She then twisted around to find Darcy, only to find her best pokemon coughing and barely conscious.

"Darcy!" she exclaimed, forgetting any possible animosity between her and the ghost. The crazed diurnal bug had surprised her enough to replace fear of the misdreavus with fear of the inability to defend herself from a wild attacker.

Without looking around to check where the kricketune was, Priscilla quickly returned Darcy to her capsule and scrambled over to hide in the tent. Just as she dove inside, she heard a crackle outside and saw the sky above the tent light up.

"What?" Priscilla poked her head out the door to the tent, zipping it up only halfway.

She couldn't clearly see the top of the cliff, but she did see a silhouette of a large pokemon she did not know breathing fire. The kricketune, it seemed had gotten caught in what appeared to be a powerful flamethrower.

Whimpering, she zipped up the tent without another word, hoping the fire-breathing monster wouldn't come any nearer, and snuggled up next to Tor (who had somehow slept through it all). Priscilla jammed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep.

She managed to think something along the lines of, "well, maybe if they can't see me or think I'm asleep, the monsters won't know how to attack me," before she joined Tor in sleep.

---

_Once again, Priscilla found herself in a dark place on a floating rock. Everything around her seemed to press in on her body, and even though she couldn't see any sort of light source, she knew there were deformed, upside-down trees far off in front of her._

_"Hello?" she called, hoping it was a dream again, and not some terrible real-life world she had happened upon. "Hello? Zenith?"_

_Silence._

_"J-Jet?"_

_Silence._

_"Tor? Tor - are you there?"_

_More silence._

_"...Duh...Duh..." Priscilla stuttered, unable to speak. The name, it seemed, terrified her as much as her surroundings did. "D-Darce-"_

_But a hand clamped around her mouth, cutting her off. She squealed and struggled, but the hand wouldn't budge._

_Her head swam, and she realized that she had fallen off the floating rock._

_She fell and fell and fell and heard someone scream her name, and then -_

---

"Priscilla!" she screamed, sitting up. For a moment the girl thought that the mysterious voice-stealer from the previous night had come back, but then Priscilla realized she had, in fact, been calling her own name.

The girl shivered. "Why do I keep having that dream?" she asked Tor, who had begun to wake up.

"Trr?" Tor mumbled, blinking sleepily. The little turtwig had a smile on his face already, happy to see his trainer and happy to see the morning.

Priscilla couldn't help but smile a little, and then unzipped the door to the tent. The sun hung a little over the flat horizon to the east, and Priscilla shielded her eyes against the welcome sunrise to look at the town in the distance.

"Tor! I can see Celestic Town!" Priscilla said, motioning her turtwig over so he could get a look at the orange and yellow roofs in the distance.

The turtwig chirped happily, not exactly understanding the significance of the town, but happy that Priscilla was happy.

Priscilla then took her second pokemon out of the tent, plopping him on the ground next to her things so that she could minimize the tent. During this time, Jet popped out of his safari ball, twitching his wings and stretching out in the sunlight.

"Good morning, Jet," Priscilla said as she packed away the last item ball from her campsite. "Darcy got hurt last night, and I don't have enough healing potions with me, so I guess it's just the three of us for now," she explained, pulling her backpack onto her back. The part about the potions was actually a lie - she already checked, and she had three potions left - but after the previous night, Priscilla wasn't too keen on healing Darcy enough to continue the interrogation. "Is that okay with you guys?"

Jet buzzed happily, beating his bug wings and rising up into the air. Was Priscilla insane? Of course he felt fine about Darcy being out of commission! He hated that ghost more than anything.

Tor, on the other hand, looked concerned. If Priscilla didn't have potions for Darcy, then how would she be able to heal him and Jet if they got hurt?

But Priscilla didn't understand his "tur, tur-twig trrrr?" chatter when he asked, so she assumed he didn't have any problems with the arrangement. "Great," she said, starting to climb down the mountainside. "Let's go."

---

"Your pokemon are all healed," the Pokemon Center nurse said with a smile as she handed Priscilla three pokeballs. "Thank you for coming!"

"Thanks. Um, can I get a room here? Just for one night?"

"Of course," the nurse replied, swiping Priscilla's ID card and giving her a room key. "Upstairs, take a left, three doors down - room 14."

"Thanks," Priscilla mumbled, taking her pokeballs, ID, and room key and heading up to her room.

She opened the door to see that she had a single room about the size of a broom closet. At least it had a big window, she noted as she dropped her things onto the floor. She hated small rooms with equally small windows.

As she stared out the window, she realized her windows faced west - the direction of sunsets. The sun hung above the mountains, only an hour or so before it could start setting.

Priscilla groaned, opening the window and leaning against the windowsill. "I totally forgot," she whined. "How am I gonna get the sunset into a cup? That - that doesn't even make sense!"

Below her, the sleepy town of Celestic seemed to be packing up for the night. Around the main shrine at the base of the small valley there stood the ends of a daytime outdoor market, with the last stragglers grabbing their purchases before retreating up the hills to their homes. She squinted - there was one stall that seemed to be staying open late.

She squinted some more, trying to figure out what sort of stall it was. As she leaned out her window, she realized a person leaving the stall had a few books.

Then she remembered the previous night and all the talk about the "grimoire".

"A grimoire's a book," she told herself, turning around and grabbing a small pink shoulder bag from her backpack. "Maybe the bookseller knows something about it."

She stuffed her wallet and three encapsulated pokemon into the the bag, locked her door on the way out, and ran out of the pokemon center.

---

"Hello! Are you still open?" Priscilla asked as she skidded to a halt in front of the stall. Luckily for her, the Pokemon Center stood near the heart of the village, giving her easy and quick access to the dregs of the outdoor market.

The bookseller, an old man with a long white mustache and thick-rimmed glasses, smiled down at her. "I stay open as long as I need to for everyone to find their books."

"Great," Priscilla said, suddenly realizing she didn't know what kind of book she was looking for. She barely even knew why she thought it was a good idea to come ask an open air market bookseller for help. "Um...I'm looking for a book..."

"You've come to a good place for it," the man replied kindly. "I sell used books. We have no real bookstore in this town - just a small library - so I try to peddle what books people don't want to people who do want them. You know the saying, right?" He chuckled. "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

Priscilla nodded, trying to smile politely. "Um...I know some people who are looking for, um, a special kind of book."

"Do you know what kind of book this is?"

"Um...well...no, but," she looked down, too embarrassed to look the shopkeeper in the face. Why did she come down here? "They, uh, called it a 'grimoire'. That's a kind of book, right?"

The old man stared at her for a minute, and Priscilla didn't know what to make of his wrinkly face. It looked serious, possibly suspicious, possibly just attempting to be patient with a girl who didn't know her vocabulary. "Yes, a grimoire is a kind of book. Usually it's a book with spells inside," he said with a smile. "A special kind of book, indeed."

"Like - like a magic book?" Priscilla asked. "Would bad people use it?"

"Depends on the book," the man answered, taking something from his pocket. "Now, I'm not sure if I have any books like that, but my mission is to make sure people find the books they're meant to find. I used to be a librarian, before I retired," he added, dropping the object. "Libra used to help me find the books people didn't know they were looking for."

The object he dropped must have been some kind of pokeball, because Priscilla found herself staring into the face of an ancient-looking bird pokemon she couldn't recognize. It had a green face, yellow beak, stiff white wings, and a distant look in its eyes.

She took a step back. "What - what kind of -"

"...Pokemon is Libra?" the bookseller finished. "She's a xatu, a pokemon indigenous to Johto. I used to be a librarian in Violet City before I moved here. I met her in the Ruins of Alph while I was reading a book. Both of us love to read," he explained, Libra nodding slowly. "Xatus are special pokemon that can see through time. Libra can see the book you are meant to read while you are reading it in the future, and I can translate her hints."

"Hints?" Priscilla asked.

"She can't always say when or where you'll find the book, or even what it's called," the man explained. "But she will find something to say that will help you find it. If you're meant to find this grimoire, or if you'll find it in the future, she'll be able to see that."

The xatu took a step forward and raised one of her wings to brush against Priscilla's head. The bird make a small cawing sound in the back of her throat, and Priscilla experienced a brief feeling of vertigo -

_A black book, one with a ripped-up leather binding and a red jewel on it, I'm reading it but I can't figure out where, where is it, she'll kill me if I don't find it but she'll die if I don't find it, and where is -_

"Celest."

Priscilla looked up. She said it, the old man said it, and she assumed Libra said it. They all said it at the same time. "What was that?"

"Do you know somebody named 'Celest'?" the man asked. "That could be the person with the book right now."

She shook her head, looking back at Libra. The bird seemed to be concentrating on something, then turned and chattered something to the bookseller in a language Priscilla did not understand.

"You need to get some air?" the man asked, sounding a bit confused. "Of course, but -"

Priscilla jumped to the side as the xatu zoomed into the air, flying north.

"Forgive her, she gets a bit edgy around strangers," the man said. "Oh - my name is Tsuruda, by the way. Even though you don't know this 'Celest'," he added, bending down beneath the counter barring him from his customers, "I think this book might come in handy."

She looked down on the counter as he dropped a thick, old book onto it. The title, though worn with years, read: "The Southern Seas." Priscilla frowned, picking it up and flipping it open. Inside were pages of text, diagrams, maps, and illustrations of the sea routes of a far-off country. "How -?"

"I don't know if Libra saw you reading this book or not," Tsuruda said with a smile. "But I think both she and I agree that you might enjoy this book. Take care of it, please. It's an old book. Many people have enjoyed reading it."

Priscilla smiled shyly. "Um, okay. How much?"

"Two-hundred-fifty."

"That's so cheap! Shouldn't you -"

"I charge what is meant to be charged." He leaned in closer. "But promise me you will make sure not to lose this book, Priscilla Vo of Pastoria City."

Priscilla pushed over her money and held the book close. "How do you know my name?"

Tsuruda smiled. "Libra is a powerful pokemon, indeed. She can see more than just the book you search for."

"Oh." Priscilla said, smiling uneasily and edging away. "Thank you for your help, and, uh, thanks for this book. I'm sure it'll be -"

Halfway through her sentence, two things caught her eye. As she edged away, she reached the right angle to the bookseller's stall so that she could see the objects behind his counter. Not only could she see the simple spherical rock he dropped on the ground, but she also saw a tin cremation box with a familiar name and a date from years ago.

"- fun....to read."

She gulped.

"Goodbye, Mister Tsuruda!"

And she ran back to the Pokemon Center.

Looking out the window, she watched as Tsuruda packed up his stall and left. Nowhere in the skies or the forest nearby could Priscilla see his beloved xatu.

Nowhere...

Then...

Priscilla shook her head. She already had her own ghost and sick mother. She didn't need to think about other deaths.

Leaning on the windowsill, she looked up into the sunset.

"Celest," she muttered, squinting to see the twinkling stars come out. "Who are you?"

---

Author's Note: If you read my other Pokemon story, Summer Heat, then some things in this chapter might make more sense, especially about the bookseller. Or if you don't want to read my other story but just want a bit more information on what you just read, I'd recommend reading Summer Heat's Chapter 8, "Burn-Book".


	15. From Johto

Chapter 15: From Johto

"I can't see."

"_No see either._"

"_Tor can't see, too!_"

"_It appears we have a problem,_" Darcy said, swiveling her body to face Priscilla. "_None of us can see the road ahead._"

Priscilla frowned. "But..." She pulled out a town map and squinted at the road east of Celestic Town. "On the map it looks like this road, Route 210, curves and goes south at some point...and it looks kind of like it's rocky and dangerous."

"_You can tell all that from that little piece of paper_?" Darcy asked, floating closer and smiling. "_I could have told you that. Isn't it easy to see how dangerous this path is?_" She took a deep breath. "_I can almost smell all the trainers who've died here, trying to reach their next destination._"

"_Stop talk!_" Jet buzzed, landing on Priscilla's head. "_It bothering us._"

Tor shivered by Priscilla's feet. "_I'm scared!_" he announced stubbornly. "_I don't want to go to the next town!_"

Their trainer sighed. Once again, it seemed, her team just couldn't get along. And why did Darcy have to always be so creepy? (Although, Priscilla thought to herself, at least she wasn't asking about "what Priscilla really dreamed about" a few nights back.)

"Um, so," Priscilla began, stopping and trying to look through the fog. She could see a path shooting off ahead of her, possibly with a sheer, rocky drop-off to the left, but she couldn't be sure. "I think this is where the 'defog' technique might be, um, you know. Useful."

Darcy floated down from above her to a depth she could see. "_Defog? The attack?_"

"Yeah," said Priscilla. "I learned about it in school. It's one of the field techniques you teach - I think it's pretty useless in a battle and I don't know if anybody learns it on their own."

"_Then why don't you find some way to teach one of us, sweetie?_"

Priscilla frowned. "I think you need a machine."

"_A machine?_"

"A...hidden machine. I - I don't know." Priscilla began to feel much stupider than she had felt a few moments ago. "I don't have any teaching machines!"

Darcy grinned. "_A secret technique that none of us know. How exciting._"

Jet, on the other hand, flew up into the fog and tried his best to blow it away. "_Defog would blow white away? I try. I try defog._"

Alas, it did no good: Priscilla couldn't see any better when Jet landed on her shoulders, tired out and his wings resting, than before.

"Well, um...I dunno if it's safe to go on...like," Priscilla leaned to her left, trying to see if there really was a drop-off there. "I don't wanna fall off a cliff and die." Because, she decided not to add, that would spell death for her mother. If she couldn't get her three badges, scale the highest peak of Mount Coronet, get the sunset into a cup, and give the contents of said cup to that so-called "Zenith" guy, her mother would die of Poltergeist's Disease.

"_But how would we get to Hearthome, then, sweetie?_" Darcy asked, floating closer and dropping her voice to a terrifying whisper. Her two-tone eyes glinted with the tiny bit of sunlight that managed to seep in through the milky mists. "_I'm afraid we've already come such a long way from Celestic Town that turning back would be unwise. Also, sweetie, I'd like to add that it would take many days - weeks, possibly, to go back and take another route to Hearthome City. Don't you have some sense of...urgency...in your travels?_"

Priscilla bit her lip. Darcy was right, unfortunately. She didn't know if her mother had reached the second symptom of the disease yet, the itching "maggot scratches" underneath the skin, but she didn't want to gamble with taking a long time.

"So, um, what do - do you suggest?"

Darcy's smile grew wider, showing all her ghostly white teeth. "_I suggest you return dear Jet and Tor and allow me to help you through the fog, sweetie._"

"_What?_" Jet buzzed, alighting and zooming towards Darcy. "_Bad idea! You want die! You want Trainer die!_"

"_I'm very sorry, my dear Jet, but I don't know what you're saying_," Darcy retorted with an evil grin. "_I'm not exactly sure how to comprehend your...bucolic tongue._"

Jet said something incomprehensible in an angry tone, lunging at Darcy from above with a quick attack. He fell through Darcy's body with a surprised yelp, causing Darcy to cackle wildly. "_A normal-type attack? Jet, dear, you have been mislead! Normal-type attacks don't affect ghosts at all, not with double power._"

The yanma shrieked in anger, turning to attack again, but before he reached Darcy, he suddenly felt the sudden pull of his safari ball. He turned his head at the last second to see Priscilla looking down but holding his capture device out in front of her.

"_I protect you -_" he buzzed quickly before his body was sucked back inside his capsule.

Priscilla sighed, putting Jet's ball back on her belt, and hugging herself. She shook a bit, suddenly overtaken with a chill. "C-cold. Why -"

But she couldn't finish her sentence, because Tor suddenly shrieked like a banshee and began to convulse wildly. "_GRIM! GRIM! GRIM! GRIM!_" Tor yelled, his eyes bugging out as he rolled jerkily on the damp pathway. "_GRIM! MORE! GRIM GRIM MORE GRIM MORE MORE MORE GRIM GRIM!_"

"What's happening to him?" Priscilla yelled as she knelt down and tried to pick up and calm the panicking Tor.

"_I think it's one of his panic attacks,_" Darcy replied, not looking in Priscilla and Tor's direction, but to their left. "_I wouldn't pay attention to his senseless babble, sweetie."_

"What's he saying?" Priscilla asked over Tor's yelling. "Why's he panicking?"

"_My dear, I don't know,_" snapped the ghost, glaring down at her. "_Contrary to popular belief, I am neither a psychotic killer nor an omniscient genius. I am just a ghost you found in Eterna Forest. Figure out his little affliction yourself; you seem to have a real penchant for attracting diseased, sociopathic family members._"

Her words seemed to shoot through Priscilla's heart, reminding Priscilla too much of her mother's bleeding eyes. Fighting back both tears and a desire to punch the ghost (which wouldn't do anything even if she did, other than possibly anger the misdreavus), Priscilla returned Tor to his pokeball and stood up.

"You didn't have to say that about my mom," she hissed. "My mom's not a sociopath."

"_But she is diseased, sweetie,_ a_nd do you even know what the word 'sociopath' means?_" Darcy asked with sweet smile.

"Yes," Priscilla lied. "Of course I do. I'm not stupid."

"_Stupid, no. In the same way you aren't intuitive, logical, or observant." _Darcy grinned. _"Did you notice we had guests, sweetie?"_

Before Priscilla could say anything, a cold gust of Darcy's ominous wind slammed into her, knocking her down. That was precisely the moment a large purple-pink bat cut through the fog where Priscilla stood a second earlier, snapping its jaws around Darcy's middle.

The ghost shrieked in agony, but managed to slip out of the crobat's poison fang grip before too much damage had been done. Once she reached a higher altitude, she sent out a wave of rippling air from her mind, hitting the crobat as her foe as it tried to chase after her.

A loud howl sprang out of the bat's throat as it lost altitude due to the attack, shaking and struggling to regain its stability in the air.

"_It's strong,_" Darcy called through the fog. "_If it wasn't, my attack would've been weaker - look out!_"

As the bat shot back up after its opponent, a large, black, furry animal landed on Priscilla, trapping her against the ground.

Priscilla screamed as she saw the small, beady eyes of the monster and the flames around its neck...and the surprised look on its face when it saw it had only pinned down a little girl.

The surprised look soon turned to a vicious scowl, but aimed not at Priscilla - at Darcy. "_You attacked a little girl?_" it roared. Or, rather, _she_ roared, since she had a female voice.

Darcy opened her mouth to say something, but she had to close it and send out a second psywave as the crobat (apparently in line with the large, fiery monster on top of Priscilla) tried to slice her open with its left wing.

"Vampire! Assassin!"

Both the black monster and the bat snapped their heads back in the direction they came. Priscilla strained her neck to look around the monster at the fog behind them, trying to see the person who was talking about vampires and assassins.

"Vampire - use defog. I can't see," the same voice - a man - ordered.

"_You got off easy, ghost,_" the crobat spat as she (as she had a female voice, too) stopped her attack. She flew higher, until the fog almost masked her from view, then snapped her wings downward a few times.

Almost like magic, the fog blew away; Priscilla had to shield her eyes from the sudden wind generated by the bat, but when she looked back, she could see a blue sky above them.

She could also see that the black-furred monster that pinned her against the ground was standing up on its hind legs, allowing her to scoot backwards and stand up herself.

When she did, she felt Darcy float down behind her and saw a man standing in front of her. He had dark red hair cut in a short, clean, professional manner with sparkling silver eyes behind square glasses that seemed to stare right through Priscilla. She also noticed he wore a black biker jacket, jeans, and...orthopedic nurse's shoes.

"I'm sorry my pokemon attacked you," he said, smiling a bit. "They're pretty rough." He glared at them. "Assassin! Vampire! Apologize to the young lady and her pokemon!"

"_It looked like the ghost was attacking her,_" the crobat snapped. "_You know how I feel about ghosts._"

"Is that any way to talk about a kind of pokemon you've worked with, Vampire?" the man demanded, causing the fire-type to roll its eyes.

The crobat, Vampire, shrugged her wings in between flaps. "_Whatever. I just hate ghosts. Everyone does - they're freaky._"

"_Perfectly understandable,_" Darcy said from behind Priscilla. "_I hate bats._" Priscilla tried to shush her with a slap. It worked, though her hand went right through the misdreavus's head.

The man shook his head. "Vampire, Assassin, how 'bout you take a time-out." He held up two pokeballs and his two pokemon disappeared in a flash. "I'm really sorry about that," he said to Priscilla. "They're a bit trigger-happy. They really miss my days as a real trainer."

"R-real trainer?" Priscilla asked, a little overwhelmed. Not only overwhelmed by the sudden ambush, but also by realizing that if she had walked in the direction she had been going, she would have walked right off a cliff into a roaring river twenty or thirty meters below.

"I'm done training," he explained. "I'm heading to Solaceon Town to start my job as a psychotherapy assistant at the mental health hospital." He held out his hand. "You shake hands in Sinnoh, right? You can call me Silver."

Hesitantly, Priscilla took his hand, feeling his strong grip. "I'm Priscilla."

Silver smiled again, and Priscilla wondered if behind his calm exterior, he had a hidden vicious character, like his pokemon had on the outside. Two pokemon on the same team didn't usually develop a similar violent personalities if their trainer was _always _this pleasant. "Are you from around here, Priscilla?"

"No. Well - yeah, I guess. I'm from Pastoria City."

"Ah. I'd say that's close by. I'm actually from Johto. I moved here only a few months ago."

Priscilla's eyes widened. "They let you work here?" It was, after all, very unusual to give a job to a foreigner. Especially one from Johto-Kanto.

"Yeah, amazingly enough," Silver said with a shrug. "I had to do six months of traveling and training a pokemon team before I started work, since my employer wanted me to 'acclimate to Sinnohan culture', but yeah. I'm gonna work here. Actually," he began with a turn of his head. "One of my friends got a job here, too - also in Solaceon. She's with me - oh! There she is!"

Priscilla craned her neck to see the young woman behind Silver, and she gasped. The woman herself wasn't very interesting - just a normal-looking woman with tan-colored hair in a ponytail, greyish eyes, a red tank top, khaki shorts, and a grey-green backpack - but the pokemon with her was all too familiar.

It was the same kricketune that ambushed Priscilla and Darcy on their way to Celestic Town.

"Hey," the woman said as she and her kricketune reached the group. "Who's she?" she asked, pointing down at Priscilla.

"This is Priscilla," Silver explained. "She's a trainer from Pastoria City. Priscilla, this is my friend -"

"I'm Ri - oh, wait, you go by English names here, don't you? I'm Lisa," the woman introduced, shaking Priscilla's hand. "I'm from Johto, too."

Priscilla smiled uneasily, shifting her gaze back and forth between the older trainers and her own misdreavus, who had a hostile look on her already creepy face. "Um, hi. Um..." Priscilla looked at Darcy for a minute, then back at Silver and Lisa. "Can I talk to my pokemon for a minute?"

Without waiting for an answer, Priscilla darted off to what she hoped would be out of earshot, Darcy following closely.

When Priscilla opened her mouth to say something, though, Darcy cut in and said, "_I think we should ask to travel with them to Solaceon Town._"

"What?" Priscilla asked, a little confused. "I was gonna say that, too, but you looked like you didn't like them."

"_I don't,_" Darcy replied. "_I'm not terribly fond of pokemon that ambush me and have the upper hand, and it would seem both of our new 'friends' have at least one such pokemon. But, I regret to say, I feel as though it would be unwise to pass up this opportunity to,_" she narrowed her eyes at the trainers - Lisa especially, Priscilla noticed, "_get to know these two people."_

The little girl nodded. "Um, okay." They walked (or, in Darcy's case, floated) back to the other people and pokemon. "Um...if it's not too much trouble," Priscilla asked, feeling a bit daunted by the other trainers. "Can, um, can I, um...go...with you...to Solaceon Town?"

Silver raised an eyebrow. "Like tag along for the journey? I thought Sinnoh people hated traveling in groups."

"N-not all the time. I, um, I don't have a pokemon that knows the defog technique, so..."

"Sure!" Lisa exclaimed, giving Silver a nasty look when he seemed to protest. "It would be great to help a new trainer find her way through this fog," she explained to her companion. "Wouldn't it, Silver?"

The oldest trainer smiled uneasily, apparently intimidated by his younger female companion. "Uh, yeah. That's fine with us."

"Great. Then let's go."

Lisa began to lead the way along the canyon edge, and Priscilla looked up at Silver, who had fallen in step with her. "Um, this is okay with you, right?"

He shrugged. "I just gotta get to Solaceon so I can start work on Monday. It's no big deal."

"He's a big softie at heart, don't let him scare you," called the other girl from ahead. "Same with his pokemon. Especially Assassin."

"Shut up, Lisa," Silver snapped.

Priscilla couldn't help but smile a bit. Although Lisa and Silver were much older than her, she felt like she could (strangely enough) relate to them. She wasn't sure how, but she liked them.

But as they made their way along the canyons and across the rope bridges, she turned to look at Darcy, and saw an expression of sheer disgust on her face.

"What's wrong?" Priscilla whispered.

"_That girl - 'Lisa',_" Darcy said slowly. "_I can tell she's the kind of girl to cause problems. And if she doesn't stop asking the wrong questions to the wrong people,_" Darcy smiled her too-wide smile, causing Priscilla's stomach to turn and remember exactly what kind of pokemon she was dealing with, "s_omebody is going to try to kill her. I wish I could be around to see it! Hah hah - I hope it works!_"

And with that, she opened her mouth and laughed, her cackle echoing off the canyon walls and disappearing into the distant fog.

---

Author's Note: I'd like to point out that the "r" sound and the "l" sound are interchangeable in Japanese, also that "silver" in Japanese is "gin". Also that in the canon of Poltergeist's, Sinnoh's primary language is English while Johto's is Japanese, though they are multilingual.


	16. Prelude

Chapter 16: Prelude

"...And that's my 'first badge' story," Lisa said, looking up at the story. "Heat was so incredibly useless."

"_Shut up! I was awesome,_" Lisa's gigantic black, fire-necked monster spat. He sat next to Assassin, Silver's pokemon of the same kind - Priscilla learned they were typhlosions, and they were rare fire-type pokemon native only to Johto. "_I was just, you know. A champ-in-training_."

Lisa snorted. "Whatever. We were both really pathetic then."

"_Excuse me? I was definitely super awesome in our second gym fight._"

"It was luck."

"_It wasn't luck! It was my super amazingness!_"

"Nope. Luck."

"_Oh yeah_?"

"Yep."

"_I hate you._"

"The feeling's mutual, Heat," Lisa said with a smile as she sipped her tea. "Of course I hate you, too. That's why I _didn't_ go back and train after our first season was done, I _never_ joined the battle team in high school, and we _didn't_ go to nationals and you _never_ had your little 'champion of the world' moment where you fell off the stage at the awards ceremony."

"_Shut up. If you don't,_" Heat sneered, "_I'll tell everyone about all your embarrassing relationship stories and call up your ex-boyfriends for details._"

"You wouldn't."

"_I would._"

Priscilla giggled at Lisa and Heat's banter as translated by Darcy, who hovered with her back to the group. They had set up camp about half a day from Solaceon Town, and as Priscilla learned, camping out with Lisa and Silver meant camping in style. For one thing, they let out all twelve of their pokemon, making the atmosphere seem half like a crazed party and half like a gang war waiting to happen.

That, and because they both had fire-type pokemon, they lit a campfire. Sure, Silver's weavile hated the heat, but between him and one of Silver's "for work" alakazams, they had enough water-based attacks to control the fire if it got out of hand.

They also had the most amazing stories of their time in Johto. Lisa and Silver had started at about the same time, when Lisa was twelve and Silver fifteen, and although they went their separate ways, they kept bumping onto each other. Apparently there were two other friends in their group, but they were back in Johto. (One of whom, apparently, was the Johto League's Understudy Champion.)

Jet and Tor enjoyed hearing their stories just as much as Priscilla did; it was only Darcy that seemed to not pay attention. Every now and then Priscilla would turn around to try and convince her ghost to have a good time, but Darcy would just shake her off. Eventually, the girl seemed to lose interest in her misdreavus and turn back to her new human friends.

For the first time since Darcy had joined their team, Jet noted with glee, Priscilla was ignoring her.

---

_"Priscilla."_

_Priscilla looked up at the huge waterfall ahead of her._

_"Priscilla, can you hear me?" It was the voice from behind the waterfall, one coming from an obscured male shape._

_She nodded. "Yeah," she yelled over the roar of the towering column of falling water._

_"Why are you getting distracted?"_

_"What?"_

_"I need the sunset, Priscilla - we're running out of time."_

_"Running out of time for what?" Priscilla yelled, confused. "What do I -"_

_She stopped as the water in front of her rippled and colored. It became a screen, one showing her a swirling image of many colors._

_"I need the sunset, Priscilla," Zenith explained as the image solidified into a picture of a boy she did not recognize. "It's the only way I know how to make it right again."_

_"Make what right? Make -" Priscilla gasped, the blood draining from her face. The image of the boy melted away to show a moving picture: one of Priscilla looking up at the "camera", screaming, and then falling back as a bullet went through her chest. "A bullet? From a gun?" Priscilla asked, shocked. She hadn't seen a gun in real life - only in pictures. They were outdated military technology from who-knows-when; nobody used them when they could roast, electrocute, stab, drown, freeze, poison, or psychically rip apart their target much more quickly and without as many of the risks of being identified._

_Then the image changed to show a large number of people she didn't know, all dead. Most of them looked like they had bullet wounds, but a fair number had slit throats._

_"Please hurry, Priscilla," Zenith said. "We need more time, but I'm not sure -"_

---

"Priscilla, wake up! We don't have much time!"

Priscilla shivered as she looked up to see Lisa standing over her. "What?"

The older trainer smiled. "Good, you're awake. You need to get up now."

"Why?"

"We don't have much time before the fog sets in. It'll be easier to get to Solaceon without having to use defog all the time."

"Oh," Priscilla said, thinking back to her dream. This "we don't have much time" seemed a lot less dire. "Okay."

As she stood up and got ready, pulling on her t-shirt and shorts and piling her item storage capsules into her backpack, she realized one of her pokemon had left its pokeball.

"Darcy..." Priscilla shoved the last item capsule, the one holding her tent, into her bag and clipped on Tor and Jet's pokeballs before looking around for the ghost.

She finally saw her hanging on the edge of the campsite, her head sticking into the tall grass nearby.

Priscilla walked over to the ghost, a little concerned. Darcy had been acting weird, she remembered (although, quite frankly, Darcy always acted weird. Homocidal, even). "Darcy?"

Darcy turned around with a start, a huge smile on her face and her eyes bulging out of her purple head. If Priscilla's eyes were working correctly, it seemed that a bit of uncharacteristic drool had begun to dribble down Darcy's jaw. "_It's coming baaaaaaaack,_" she wailed, gasping for air and her smile growing even wider. "_It's coming baaaaaaack - gasp! - we haaaaaave to go - gasp! - it's coming baaaaaaaack - gasp! - Priscilla Vo will diiiiiiie! - gasp! - it's coming baaaaaaaaack!_"

Priscilla's chest tightened and she began to back away from her crazed misdreavus, holding out the ball she normally kept Darcy in during the day. "D-darcy, y-you n-need to c-come back."

"_It's coming baaaaaaaaack!_"

With a red flash, Darcy disappeared into her pokeball, but Priscilla's ears were ringing.

It, whatever "it" was, was coming back.


	17. Decline

Chapter 17: Decline

"Hydro Cannon."

The rocks in front of the young woman and the penguin crumbled as the huge torrent of water smashed into them.

She grinned, and turned to her pokemon. "Good job, Prince. Your accuracy is getting a lot better with that special move."

The pokemon cooed, stiffening itself up and letting its golden, spiky crown glitter in the sunshine and rebound water droplets.

"Dawn." The girl and her empoleon turned, seeing that somebody else had come by their training grounds outside of the Pokemon League.

She smiled, brushing away her black hair out of her eyes. "Barry! Decided to come back for a rematch?"

The newcomer, a boy her age with messy blonde hair and an impatient expression on his face, shook his head. He had one pokemon out, a chatot that hovered above him. "Heeeeck no. You remember how quickly I went down last time. I should fine you for ten million!"

Dawn giggled, patting her empoleon on the back. "Yeah, well, you know how it is." Then she turned back, a more serious expression on her face. "Did something happen? Did you...find out anything?"

Barry looked down, his chatot cawing, "find out anything, find out anything."

"We were trying to see if the body we found in Eterna City had any similarities to the ones we found in Sunyshore," he explained, taking out three photographs from his shoulder bag. He held them out for Dawn to see - two of them were lying on a beach, a beach Dawn recognized as the northern border of Sunyshore City. One was a small blue bird with five wings, no feet, and half a beak, and the other looked something like a red blob with three legs, teeth protruding where there was no mouth, and a twisted metal cap on what she assumed was its head. They both seemed to have multiple large puncture wounds all over their bodies.

The other, though, was much less recognizable as a cohesive body: all she saw in the picture was a bloody mass of mangled flesh strewn over a bit of Eterna City sidewalk.

Dawn's eyes narrowed. She'd been through enough in her twenty-two years to keep from shivering. The Distortion World, for example, was much worse. "And?"

"Well, we still don't know anything about the Eterna City one, but we tried to get some sort of DNA sample for the professor to test. Haven't heard back from him yet, but I was at the Canalave City library...and..." he trailed off, handing the photographs to Dawn so that he could get two sheets of paper out of his bag. "I was looking through some books, and I found two pictures I thought you might like to see. I mean, I didn't want to rush to any conclusions," Dawn found this statement terribly ironic, "but...well, I thought..." He shook his head. "I copied the stuff I thought might be interesting. Just take a look - I wanna see if you'll think the same thing I'm thinking."

Dawn took the copies and held them up. One was an artist's rendition of the legendary Heatran, and the other a photograph taken above Kanto's Seafoam Islands of a bird dubbed "Articuno".

She then looked at the two Sunyshore photo's that Barry had taken.

Her throat suddenly dried up.

"Barry - this - they can't be -"

"I know," Barry said, sitting down on a rock and kicking the mossy ground. "But they look really similar. Sort of wrong, but...I dunno, Dawn. They look _really_ similar."

Dawn slumped down next to him, still looking back and forth between the corpses and the legendary pokemon. "But - these were taken in Sunyshore, right? Isn't Heatran supposed to live up on Stark Mountain? And what about this 'Articuno'. Kanto's really far...and..." She trailed off.

Her friend shrugged. "Hey, since when has anything made sense around here? You remember the Galactic Incident." He took out one of his pokeballs and opened it, revealing a large green tortoise, one with a boulder and a small, scraggly tree on its back - a torterra. The chatot he already had out landed on the torterra's tree, cawing happily. "And then that weird disease - and Professor Rowan pulling us away from our Pokedex stuff and training to try and help him figure it out..."

Dawn opened her mouth to say something, then felt her cell phone buzz. She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Dawn! It's me, Lucas."

"Lucas! Hi!" She turned to Barry. "It's Lucas," she told him.

"I heard you the first time," Barry mumbled.

"Hold on, Lucas, let me put you on video-speakerphone."

She pressed a few buttons, and Lucas's face appeared on the cell phone screen. "Hey," he said, noticing Barry. "Long time no see. Did you find out anything about the bodies yet?"

Barry nodded. "Sorta. I think they - er, well, they _look_ like...you know. Articuno and Heatran."

Lucas frowned. "What about the Eterna City body?"

"It was too beat up to tell. I sent some samples to the professor, so maybe he can do a DNA test or something."

"Oh." Lucas sighed. "Well, how's Chatty doing?"

Barry looked over to the borrowed chatot, who was busy preening herself on his torterra's tree. "She's good. How's my munchlax over on your end?"

"Enough!" Dawn snapped, interrupting the two boys. "Lucas, you said you intercepted a girl who heard from 'Zenith', right? A little while back?"

He nodded. "Yeah - I gave her one of the special Pokedexes and one of our detector pokemon. A turtwig."

"And?"

"As far as I know, she's still alive and well. I haven't heard much from her, though. But I did a background check and managed to track down her mother." Lucas adjusted his phone so that Dawn and Barry could see his location - Pastoria City. "We've been staying in Pastoria for awhile, helping out at the hospital, and we've seen more of an increase in Poltergeist Disease patients in the past month here than in most other cities."

Dawn nodded. "Do you think any other people have 'Zenith' dreams?"

"Not sure - I haven't found any."

Barry nodded. "Well, I'd better get going. Nice talking to ya, Lucas."

"Same here. Check in if you find out anything more."

"Will do."

Dawn waved goodbye to Barry, then turned back to her phone. "Lucas, do the doctors in Pastoria also think..."

He nodded. "They do - they agree with Professor Rowan, and the researchers at the university in Jubilife City and the institute in Snowpoint do, too. I guess it's true; whatever Poltergeist's is, it's not a normal disease - if a real 'disease' at all."

---

"Pain split - now payback!"

Darcy, who had been within a moment of fainting, suddenly looked a lot livelier, while Fantina's own mismagius seemed to droop. Then, just as Fantina's pokemon launched her attack, Darcy slammed into her, knocking her unconscious.

"Fantina's pokemon is unable to battle - match goes to the challenger, Priscilla Vo of Pastoria City!"

"Yes!" Priscilla cheered, jumping up and down. Darcy floated over, smiling, but breathing heavily. "Darcy, we did it! We did it!"

"_Yes, sweetie,_" Darcy wheezed. "_We did. Now, if you don't mind, could you return me and take us to the Pokemon Center?_"

Priscilla frowned. "Um, okay." She called back her ghost, then walked across the field to receive her badge from Fantina.

"Félicitations - nice ghost," Fantina said with a smile and a swoosh of her ball gown. She handed Priscilla a small, purple object - her Relic Badge. "It was a fun battle - merci! Also, please have this machine to teach shadow claw."

"Um, you're welcome. Thanks for the badge and the TM," Priscilla replied as she stowed away the items in her backpack. "Um, bye!"

"Au revoir!"

---

"Are you sure you're feeling okay, Darcy?" Priscilla asked as she sat outside the Pokemon Center with her three pokemon.

Darcy smiled. "_Thank you so much for asking, sweetie, but really - I'm fine._" She seemed to droop as she said it, though, and Priscilla couldn't help but think that Darcy was lying. The little ghost had been acting that way for days, ever since her minor meltdown when they'd been camping out with Lisa and Silver before reaching Solaceon Town.

Even after parting ways with the other trainers, traveling south to Hearthome City, training in and around the metropolis, and then actually challenging Fantina, Darcy didn't seem to get much better.

Jet, on the other hand, was feeling great. Because Priscilla felt so worried about her ghost, she reverted back to using her other two pokemon more to pick up the slack. She'd used him a lot against the packs of gastly around the Lost Tower, and he actually seemed to grow as a pokemon. He felt much stronger and managed to figure out how to use the attack Priscilla called "signal beam". All he knew was that some of the other yanma in the Great Marsh knew how to launch a bright, debilitating beam out of their wings at just the right angle and frequency, and he figured that maybe he knew how to do it, too, but just didn't have it quite figured out.

It also meant Priscilla used him to take out Fantina's duskull, and he and Tor did a sort of bait-and-switch tag-team battle against her haunter. Priscilla had stubbornly demanded that Darcy go up against the mismagius, which made little sense to Jet, but she _had_ won, so he figured he shouldn't complain.

As he looked to his left, at the teammate who didn't make him want to go ballistic with his signal beam, he noticed that Tor looked a bit twitchy. His skin was dry and starting to flake. Jet figured it either meant that he'd contracted some sort of disease, or that he was getting ready to evolve - some of the other grass-type pokemon in the Great Marsh looked similar before evolution.

"So, um," Priscilla said, looking between each of her three pokemon. "We have two badges! We're just one badge away from being able to get up to the Coronet peak and save my mom!"

Jet nodded, not exactly sure how the two related to each other (the peaks and her mother), but he felt confident about going for another badge. "_Which place next?_"

Priscilla frowned. "Well, I guess we should go for something we know we can beat. Uh, d'you guys have any ideas? Maybe Oreburgh, since that's not far, and -"

"_Snowpoint!_" Darcy shrieked, wheezing and falling towards Priscilla. She caught her self, breathing heavily and staring at her trainer with bug-eyes. "_We need to go to - to Snowpoint!_"

"Snowpoint City? But - that's really far! And, um," she looked down at Tor and Jet. "We don't really stand a chance. Candice isn't a good third gym, and we -"

"_We need to go! Pris-ci-lla,_" Darcy whispered, floating closer to Priscilla's face and regaining some of her composure. "_I think some brisk air would do me a world of good. And don't worry about little Tor and our dearest Jet - I'm sure we can figure something out. But,_" Priscilla found herself staring into Darcy's swirling eyes, "_I think it would be extremely important for us to go to Snowpoint City._"

Priscilla's stomach churned, but she couldn't help but say yes to those eyes. "Yeah, we can go to Snowpoint. Jet and Tor can probably train in the Coronet tunnels before we hit the snow," she said slowly, not really feeling in control of her jaw.

Jet hissed his indignation - for one thing, going to Snowpoint made even less sense than using a wheezing misdreavus against a gym leader's mismagius (he still wasn't sure how Darcy won, unless she used her creepiness to her advantage). He didn't know much about the city, but with a name like "Snowpoint" and Priscilla's exclamation over how far away it was...it didn't sound good. It sounded, in fact, freezing cold, and for bug-types, flying-types, and grass-types, cold spelled defeat.

"_Priss-la, bad idea,_" Jet buzzed, shoving Darcy out of the way to look the trainer in the eyes. "_Go different place. No snowy points!_"

Priscilla quickly glanced at Darcy before looking back at her starter. "It's - it's okay, Jet. It'll be fine. Darcy - she'll protect us. Plus, it's summer. There probably won't be much snow."

Jet turned to look at their so-called protector.

All he saw was a conniving, scheming, evil ghost with a too-wide smile and a coughing fit.

"_Well, then,_" Darcy said, floating up next to Priscilla. "_To Snowpoint? If we take the overnight bus back to Celestic Town, the trip will be much quicker._"

"Yeah, sounds good," Priscilla replied, looking up at a clear blue summer sky and feeling the warm breeze. "To Snowpoint."

Jet sighed, and flew over to what appeared to be his only friend on the team, the little turtwig, Tor.

Tor looked up at him, and Jet saw that he was shaking.

"_I think it's a mistake!_" Tor whispered to his bug-typed battle partner. "_It's a tr-_"

"_Now, now, Tor,_" Darcy said loudly, floating over to look the turtwig in the eyes. "_If you have a complaint, dear, why don't you tell it to everyone on the team?_"

Tor looked from Darcy to Jet to Priscilla and back to Darcy before smiling and saying, "_Tor is fine! Let's go!_"

Priscilla lead the way towards the bus station to buy their ticket for the next day, and only Jet saw that Tor resumed shivering when Darcy looked away. He may have been a stupid bug with limited mental capacity, but he knew a brewing storm when he saw one.

He just hoped that everyone else would see it too, before it was too late.

---

Note: This story takes place twelve years after the events of Pokemon: Platinum, assuming the player chose the female character and piplup. Also, to clarify for Jet: he knows signal beam as an inherited "egg" move. The other yanma he saw also using the attack were related to him in some way, so they also had the "egg" move because they got it from a common ancestor. By the way - if you read this chapter, could you please review it? There seems to be a lot more visitor counters on the stat page for this story than reviews for each chapter...and I want to know what you think. Please?


	18. Insanity

Chapter 18: Insanity

Jet wasn't stupid. For one thing, as he got more powerful, he realized the strange new attack he was beginning to get the hang of was a rock-typed attack, making it a bit less useless against the pokemon of Mount Coronet compared to the other attacks in his arsenal. Another thing was that he knew the only reason he was getting more powerful was because both Darcy and Tor were starting to act more and more irrational as they went further into the northern corridors of the Coronet range.

And, finally, he knew that however powerful he might get, he would still be no match for what awaited them when they left the tunnels: ice. Ice, snow, and ice-typed pokemon. Because even though Priscilla seemed convinced there was no snow waiting for them, he could _feel _it. As they got closer and closer to the end of their underground journey, he could feel the temperature dropping. He could feel the remnants of a chilly wind. A slightly chilly wind, one that might not contain snow but _could_, and one that seemed a bit too cold for summer.

Especially since Priscilla's check on the weather on Route 216, Route 217, and Snowpoint City said that all they might have to worry about would be sleet. And there was a _chance_ of sleet - and ice on the ground in the morning - but it would probably just be cold rain. The ice-typed pokemon he worried about might not even necessarily attack them; they usually hibernated during the summer or retreated to higher altitudes, according to Priscilla's thorough internet-based research when they were back in the Celestic Town Pokemon Center.

But Jet knew better. The feeling in the pit of his stomach _had_ to be more than just paranoia.

Then again, he thought as he hovered above Priscilla's head and listened for another attacking graveler or zubat, it could be that he was _just_ paranoid. Maybe it was just an effect the tunnels had on the pokemon if you stayed in them for too long - they'd been in there for at least a day. (Priscilla had lost track.) After all, weren't Darcy and Tor acting so paranoid that Priscilla had to keep them in their pokeballs most of the time?

Or, rather, Tor was acting paranoid. He refused to come out of his pokeball unless both Jet and Darcy couldn't handle a graveler, in which case he would come out, quickly dispatch the pesky rock-type with a few razor leaves or an attempted mega drain (which, like the rock-type attack Jet was on the edge of learning, wasn't quite there yet), and then demand to go back inside his pokeball.

Darcy, on the other hand, was just plain insane. But, Jet thought, was that really any different than before? Darcy was always insane, she was just acting more authoritative and paranoid and less homicidally creepy than before.

Priscilla looked up at Jet. "Are you doin' okay?"

He buzzed a yes. Darcy, while she was in one of her fits earlier, had stopped translating what Jet and Tor said to Priscilla. Jet figured that no matter what he said, Priscilla would probably get the wrong meaning, although she seemed to understand "yes" and "no".

She smiled weakly. "That's good. Um, I'm glad you're getting stronger."

Yeah, yeah, Jet thought, flying ahead of her. If Tor or Darcy weren't acting so strangely, he'd barely get any battle time. And what if their weird mental conditions didn't go away when they got onto Route 216? Then what? He could get lucky with a few rock-types thanks to his speed outmatching theirs, but he didn't think all ice-types would be as slow. Even if Tor snapped out of it, he'd be at a similar disadvantage and wouldn't even have the speed to dodge.

Which meant that unless Darcy suddenly decided to be helpful, they were all going to die (or something. Whatever happened when you got trounced by wild pokemon out in the wilderness).

Then a graveler came out of nowhere, so Jet had to focus.

A few signal beams and attempts at that rock-type attack later, he and Priscilla (though she really didn't do much) managed to fend off the rock-with-arms. It lay there, dazed, and Priscilla motioned to Jet. They dashed away before the animated rock regained consciousness, therefore saving themselves a lot of grunt work and convincing Tor to battle.

Unfortunately, Jet was tired. _Really_ tired. And he had an uncomfortable gash on his side near his left wings.

Priscilla held up her flashlight, inspecting Jet. "Jet, you're hurt!"

Oh, _really?_ Jet thought. He hadn't noticed.

She dug through her bag, and then looked up, horrified. "Jet, I'm out of potions!"

The dragonfly felt like ramming his head against the rock wall of the tunnel repeatedly, but that wouldn't have helped at all. Instead he just landed, trying to ignore the pain in his side, and gave Priscilla a concerned look.

She sat down next to him, her hands on her head. "What're we gonna _do?_"

When she started to sniff and whimper, Jet's alarm signals went off. Was Priscilla going to _cry?_ Seriously? She was ten years old - she needed to woman up. He almost got smashed into little tiny pieces by a kangaskhan when he was a hatchling, and did he cry? No, he didn't. He just flew the heck out of there.

Jet looked around, trying to find something to help her focus on not crying and using her small brain to think of a way to get them to Snowpoint City in one piece. A small glimmer of reflected light from Priscilla's flashlight caught his eye, and he flew over to see what it was. (Really, he thought, the gash wasn't so bad. He could fly, after all. What was Priscilla so worried about? Maybe it had to do with Tor and Darcy's sudden inability to avoid nervous breakdowns. Maybe it was a cave thing.)

He buzzed excitedly - he'd found a smooth rock, half buried underneath some rubble from an old rock slide attack, and the rock was really shiny! Everybody liked shiny rocks! That was sure to shut up his whiney trainer.

Priscilla stood up, wiped her eyes, grabbed her flashlight, and headed over to the opposite side of the tunnel. She picked one of the normal rocks off, and gasped. "Jet, that's a dawn stone! It's so pretty - and rare!"

Jet's red mandibles split apart in a buggy grin.

Then Priscilla frowned. "But Darcy wanted a dusk stone..."

Now Jet just wanted to strangle his trainer. He found her a shiny rock and all she could think about was the stupid ghost. Typical. He really hated Priscilla sometimes, despite the odd sense of loyalty he felt to her.

Nevertheless, she picked up the stone. "But I'm happy you found it. It's so pretty! Maybe if we catch something that evolves with it, we can use it." Still holding the stone, she then looked down at Jet with a concerned look on her face, her smile gone. "But you're hurt. I dunno if you should battle anymore..."

Jet rolled his eyes. That meant that she'd have to use Tor or Darcy. The last time Tor had been let out, he burst into tears and had problems functioning, much less battling. It seemed to be getting worse the longer they spent in the cave - what good did Priscilla honestly think he'd do?

As for Darcy...well, now that Tor was so far gone, she was probably more dependable than him. But still. It was _Darcy_. She was _insane_ and a _ghost._ A bad combination in Jet's mind.

Priscilla thought for a moment, then dug out a pokeball with her free hand. "Maybe I'll just have Darcy out so she can battle if you can't..."

Then the ghost came out and Jet wanted to hit his trainer with a rock. He knew she didn't have many other options, but really? Darcy? One of the dazed gravelers would probably be more useful to them at that point than the crazed ghost.

She hovered in the air for a few moments, then turned to look down at them with crazy eyes and a shaky smile. "_Why hello, sweetie,_" she said, completely ignoring Jet and going for Priscilla. He could see Priscilla retreat a bit when the ghost moved closer and bring the hand holding the dawn stone up in defense. It was obvious how much she feared the misdreavus - and, Jet thought, why would you _bother_ having a pokemon that scared the living daylights out of you? "_I really miss talking to you when you put me away in - WHAT IS THAT STONE IN YOUR HAND?_"

Both Jet and Priscilla were a little taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation and tone. Priscilla quickly put the hand holding the stone behind her back, though Jet didn't see how that would help. Darcy probably had x-ray vision, just like those superheroes in that cartoon show they watched on the bus to Celestic. It would be just their luck. "It's - it's nothing! Jet found it, and -"

"_Ooooh, it was Jet!_" Darcy snarled, glaring down at him. He felt himself retreat. What? He was scared of her, too. At least he admitted it. "_I knew he was up to no good! Sweetie, you know how much I despise those stones._"

On the other side of the tunnel, the scared-of-her-own-pokemon trainer in question was thinking back to her first gym battle. She vaguely remembered Darcy shrinking at the sight of Gardenia's roserade, but... "But I th-thought you said you didn't like _shiny stone_ evolutions, n-not dawn stone."

"_I don't like either of them! But dawn stones are worse. They eat away at my body and tear me apart,_" the ghost hissed, shrinking up against the tunnel ceiling. "_Please, sweetie, put it away. Put it far away in an item capsule where I don't have to see it. And get that horrid bug out of my sight before I rip him apart._"

Back on Jet's side of the tunnel, mental alarms were going off. Darcy had "joked" about killing off her teammates before - though Jet always took it as being half serious - but now she was _actually threatening to kill him._

Luckily for him, Priscilla was thinking the same thing. She looked apologetically at Jet, and for the first time, Jet realized she actually arrived at a logical conclusion. Although he didn't want her to face the horrors of the ice pokemon (plural), the cave pokemon (plural), and the homicidal ghost pokemon (singular, but probably more dangerous) alone, he figured he'd die anyway if he stayed out. So when a red zap covered his vision and he disappeared back into his safari ball, he really didn't mind that much.

He was just worried that if/when he was released from his safari ball next, Priscilla would be dead.

If that was the case, he thought before he went into an encapsulated trance, he wanted a smarter trainer.

---

"Sorry 'bout the dawn stone," Priscilla said as she trudged along. Darcy hung in the air above and a bit behind her, staring down at her trainer intently. "Jet found it and I didn't wanna just leave it. But I know you want the dusk stone, and I'm really sorry I haven't found one yet."

Darcy laughed weakly, but it didn't sound like a happy laugh. "_Yes, sweetie, I know. But if you could find the dusk stone sooner rather than later, it would be much appreciated. Wouldn't it be a shame if it came too late?_"

Priscilla stopped and looked up, though she kept her flashlight on the ground. The last time she'd accidentally swiped Darcy with the flashlight beam the ghost started shrieking and screaming. Priscilla honestly thought her ears would turn to mush or melt off her head. She really didn't want to hear that sound ever again. "Whad'you mean by 'too late'? D'you mean, like, after the third badge or something?"

The ghost narrowed her eyes. She sort of shimmered a bit in the air and her eyes glowed, so even without her flashlight, Priscilla could see her perfectly well. "_I mean something completely different, sweetie._" She stopped for a moment, then twitched, and then hissed, "_because it's cooooming - it's - it's - ah - ahaha - ahahahahaaaaa - AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_"

Priscilla looked around, starting to panic, as Darcy began to dissolve into a maniacal laughter. "D-Darcy, are - are you okay?"

Darcy kept laughing, her eyes wide open and bulging, and she shook her head in such spastic movements that Priscilla knew something was wrong (if it wasn't already obvious by that time, but with Priscilla's powers of deduction, one never really did know).

Then, without warning, Darcy shot off ahead, prompting Priscilla to grab her flashlight, ignore the risks of hitting Darcy with the beam of light, and run after her.

After a quick chase through the tunnels, Priscilla finally found Darcy clinging to a rock up near the ceiling in a large cavern. She was sort of tucked in between the wall and the top with a slope of boulders leading up to her tiny, indeterminate body.

Priscilla stood at the base of the natural staircase, shining her flashlight up at her ghost and staring up with wide eyes. "D-Darcy?"

What seemed like an eternity went by before the ghost quieted her laughter and managed to spit out: "_Put that light out._"

"But then I - I can't see you, and -"

"_Fine,_" Darcy said, straightening up and smiling wider than she ever had before. Priscilla's stomach flip-flopped. A vague thought flitted across her mind: if Tor had been there, she was certain he would have started crying. She didn't know _why_ she thought that, but she did, and it scared her. Because, Priscilla wondered to herself, what if Tor's meltdowns meant something? "_Why don't you climb up here? I'm very _lonely_, Pris-ci-lla. So lonely. You wouldn't want to leave me here, all alone, would you? Sweeeeeeeetie?_"

Priscilla bit her lip, slowly shaking her head. Then she eyed the boulders. "I - I don't think I can get up there w-with my backpack."

Darcy's grin only seemed to get wider at that. "_Oh? Then why don't you leave it behind, sweetie._"

A voice in the back of Priscilla's head that sounded very much like Jet told her it was a bad idea. A voice that sounded like her mother backed it up. She was sure a voice that sounded like Zenith and Lucas and Tor and Lisa and Silver and Tanner and Jet-the-trainer and Gardenia and Fantina and everyone else she'd met agreed with them. But instead, she shrugged off her backpack, hearing it hit the floor with a thud.

Her gut, the body part that usually only spoke up when her life was in danger, told her it was a bad sound to hear.

She really should have listened to her gut. If there was one thing you should listen to, Priscilla thought as she put a hand on one of the boulders and tried to keep her flashlight in the other, it was your gut.

Too bad she wasn't listening to it. The only thing Priscilla listened to was the soft crumbling sounds of gravel rolling off the rocks as she pushed herself up the boulder staircase towards her probably-scheming misdreavus.

As she neared the top, she vaguely wondered if she would ever see her backpack again. Stealing a quick glance down at it, she remembered it held pretty much everything she had for her journey, excluding Darcy, the clothes she was currently wearing, and her flashlight.

That _did_ include Jet and Tor, though. Not to mention her two badges, all her pokemon-related items, the dawn stone she just found, her glitchy Pokedex -

No, wait. As she bent her legs to push herself up to the top, she felt a rectangular object in her left pants pocket. It had a little bulge at the top, just like her Pokedex.

Priscilla had no time to wonder how her Pokedex, which she never used, got from her backpack to her pocket because she was suddenly standing in front of Darcy.

"_Drop your flashlight, sweetie,_" Darcy whispered.

Even though she didn't want to, Priscilla felt her hand loosen and watched, horrified, as the flashlight tumbled down and rolled to a halt next to her bag.

"_Good. Now, sweetie, please don't be angry,_" the ghost said as the cave began to shake. "_But you really are partly to blame. You never did find me that dusk stone._"

Then the world ripped apart and Priscilla found herself briefly seeing a mental image of a man behind a waterfall and hearing him yell her name.

But the image faded and the man's voice disappeared when she found herself hit a strange blue rock-floor. When she looked up, she screamed.

She was in the same dark world with floating rock pathways and distorted air that housed so many of her nightmares.

And in front of her was the most terrifying monster she'd ever seen in her life.

And - even worse - it was saying her name:

"Pris-ci-lla."


	19. The Distortion World

Chapter 19: The Distortion World

Priscilla fell to her knees, scooting back when she saw the monster in front of her. It looked extremely familiar, and Priscilla remembered it vaguely from one of her nightmares. One of her _many_ nightmares that took place in the dark, cold, swirling world made of floating rock walkways and twisted trees that hung upside-down and rivers that flowed backwards.

The monster in front of her stood on three legs, but had three others growing out of the side of its greyish, muddled body. There seemed to be dull gold bands around a few of its legs, and it had a long neck that twisted around so that its face looked at her upside-down. On its face lay a bronze-ish mask that appeared to have melted and then cooled, causing it to look a bit bubbly and drippy. Its stubby grey tail dragged as it slowly stomped its way towards Priscilla, and its three ripped up, tattered black wings flapped a bit in the distorted air.

It repeated her name: "Pris-ci-lla."

Priscilla's stomach twirled and flew. She couldn't stop staring at the creature's face - it had no mouth, no nose, and no eyes. They could have been there underneath the mask, but it was as if it had no face at all, even though it _did_...

And what was worse was that it reminded her so much of the corpse they'd found in Eterna City, the one that looked like Shaymin all melted and pulled and mutated and gone wrong. Except this one didn't look like Shaymin.

It looked like those pictures she saw on TV, the ones someone snapped back when the Galactic Incident happened...

The ones of the legendary monster, Giratina.

Except...

"Prisssss-ciiiii-llaaaaa."

It...it sounded...it sounded just like -

"D-D-Darcy?" Priscilla gasped finally, still trying to get away from the thing but unable to move her head to look away.

The creature moaned. "Pris-ci-llaaa, I'm so looonely. I hate this place, sweeeeeeeetie."

Priscilla whimpered then screamed as the whole world seemed to tip on its side. She still stayed on the rock, but it felt like gravity wanted her to fall off the rock down, down, down into nothing.

The Darcy-Giratina monster took another step forward, and Priscilla saw that the air around it (she couldn't call Darcy a "she" anymore. Not with her new voice - not with her new _body_) ripple, like she was walking through water. "Staaay. Stay here wiiiiiith me. I haaaaate it here. It's torture, sweeeeeetie."

Priscilla shook her head, her eyes beginning to water up and distort the picture ahead of her even more. "N-no! No!"

"Pris-ci-llaaaa, don't leave me heeeeere. I don't like being aloooone. I want to be here with youuuu."

"N-no! Noooo! No - get away!" Priscilla crumpled upon herself, holding her hands above her head. She heard the creature get closer - thud, thud, thud. The thing's breath was almost on her. She wanted to get up and run, but she couldn't. It was like the world she was in wouldn't _let_ her.

"You don't liiiiike me," the creature said in a softer tone. Its voice still sounded so _wrong_ though. Not at all like Darcy - for one thing, it was a real voice, not telepathy or something translated. It sounded like a male voice on top of a female voice on top of a child's voice all thrown in a computer and molded into something unnatural and unrecognizable. But it still _sounded_ like Darcy. Especially when it said Priscilla's name. "But I want you to liiiiiike me. You said I was your faaaaavorite."

"N-no! No, I d-didn't!" Priscilla was sobbing now, she could barely speak. She just wanted that thing to _stay away._

The Darcy-thing stopped for a moment, breathing loudly. Then Priscilla heard the air around it move, and she opened her eyes. In front of her was a person, one she couldn't recognize or really see any features of.

All she knew was that it was a person, one that could be classified as an adult but nothing else.

"Loooook, Pris-ci-llaaaa, I can be a person like youuuuu," it said in the same voice. Priscilla cringed. "I'll be your moooother or your faaaather or your teeeeacher."

"N-no..."

"Youngerrrr?" The air changed again, and something teenager-ish appeared. "Older siiiiister? Big brooooother? Booooyfriend for when you get ooooolder?"

"S-stop..."

The air flickered. Now a person Priscilla's age stood in front of her. "Best frieeeend?"

Priscilla couldn't take it anymore. Her head was hurting just _looking_ at the thing. "Y-you're not my friend!"

The Darcy person started to look sad. Priscilla felt bad for a moment, and then remembered that the "person" in front of her _wasn't actually human._ It wasn't a pokemon, either. It wasn't a misdreavus - it was just a thing that kidnapped her.

But at least it looked less scary than the Giratina monster that had been standing in front of her before.

Which was why Priscilla was able to stand up, turn around, and _run._

She heard the creature cry out and call her name, but she just kept running. Her feet slapped against the reddish rock below her as she followed the floating walkway towards a larger plateau, not stopping even when the world turned on its side. She just ran sideways along with it.

Finally, she stopped once she reached the floating plateau, one that held one of the dark, twisted forests. Or, rather, a collection of misshapen "trees", if one could even call them that. They looked more like tall, dark, withered sunflowers that grew into trees by accident.

Priscilla leaned against one. It didn't move, but it felt cold. Were trees supposed to be this cold?

She closed her eyes, wishing for it all to go away. She didn't know why, but being in the world Darcy pulled her into made her depressed and crazy. And _scared._ Even though she couldn't tell if there was anything to actually be afraid of, the whole place was so disorienting that it shook her core. The fact that she couldn't see the sky, couldn't find any source of real light, couldn't see any real "ground"...she had never felt anything so terrifying.

Coughing, Priscilla slid to the red rock "ground" beneath the withered sunflower tree. Suddenly she was nauseous and dizzy, like she would throw up any minute. She felt dehydrated. She felt...distorted.

Then she realized that a red rock platform ahead of her was moving towards her, and on it stood the monster Giratina that used to be Darcy.

Priscilla whimpered but couldn't stand. Her nausea wouldn't let her. She just covered her eyes with her hands and tried to calm down.

It didn't work.

"Pris-ci-lla," the thing said, though Priscilla refused to take her hands off her eyes, "why are you running awaaaay? I get saaaaad when you're not with meeeeee. I like being with youuuuu. I can't be loneleeeeey, I hate being loneleeeeey. Sweeeetie? It's meeeee. Darcyyyyy, your frieeeeend."

Priscilla shook her head. "Darcy's" words were like daggers in her ears - she preferred the old Darcy, the one who only half-joked about killing her and her team. She'd rather have had the creepy misdreavus Darcy than the monster. She couldn't even describe the monster, but she knew it was way past "creepy".

There was a thud as the platform connected with the plateau. With a thud, Priscilla heard Darcy step towards her. Thud, thud, thud.

"You and I will be here foreeeeever. There's no way ouuuuut. I don't rememberrrrr, but it's okaaaaay. We have each otherrrrrr."

Priscilla's body shook. Every moment she spent with the monster seemed to drain her sanity away, take away her ability to _think_, make her stomach queasy, make her body not really function the way it should. It was beyond horrible. She just - she just had to get _out._ She wasn't meant to be in this world. She - she -

"Turn into a little kid."

"Whaaaaaaat?"

Priscilla looked up at the monster, her stomach dissolving and her vision swimming. "Turn into a little kid," she said woodenly. It was like her mouth was moving on its own - Priscilla didn't seem to feel herself talking, but she was. She was only half-sure why she was even saying what she was saying. "I always wanted a little sister."

It could have been Priscilla's deranged imagination, but the thing's eyes - even though it had no visible eyes - seemed to light up. "Of cooooourse! I can be whatever you waaaant!"

And all of a sudden, a small child stood in front of her, staring at her with big eyes. Priscilla stood up and smiled, though she didn't feel like smiling. "Good. Now stay that way."

"Okaaaaay. Pris-ci-lla, I -"

It didn't get to finish whatever it said, because Priscilla had brought her foot back and rammed it into the child's stomach. The child coughed, stumbled back, and writhed on the ground.

Once again, Priscilla was running.

But something went wrong - she couldn't run straight.

The red, rocky platform she was on twisted around, and she suddenly realized she was falling to the left, then down, then up, then scrambling for a blue rock but not making it...

She heard the monster, in a voice that sounded just like Darcy, shriek: "PRIS-CI-LLAAAAAA!" But it was so far away. Darcy, or that thing, or whatever there was, couldn't help her.

Just as she felt her consciousness slip away and death come, she saw what looked like a gold-and-silver worm with spiky black wings and a sleek gold mask fly under her, catching her.

She rode the monster for a few moments, then the other creature - the one that looked _right _- dropped her through a hole in the world.

Then all she felt was cold, all she saw was white, and all she could hear, other than the roar of the storm around her, was the sound ringing in her ears.

The sad, hurt, twisted, scared shrieking of what used to be a lonely little misdreavus named Darcy, calling her name.

Pris-ci-lla...

---

Author's Note: Just because I write child abuse into a story doesn't mean I condone it. Also, on a different note, I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on Tuesday, July 21, so I'm not sure how much I'll be updating after that. I just wanted to make sure this chapter went up so to kind of clean up that last cliffhanger. :)


	20. Snowstorm

Chapter 20: Snowstorm

Priscilla suddenly realized she was cold. Very cold. Very, very, _very _cold.

With that realization came the shock of another - the swirling white she saw all around her wasn't just her imagination. It wasn't another part of that weird, dark, twisted world she'd just ran away from.

It was a blizzard, and it was very much part of the real world.

And she was caught in it wearing cargo pants, hiking boots, a cotton t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and normal underwear. No coat. No hat. No snow pants. No long underwear. She wore enough to keep her warm in the cave, the climate of which equated to a pleasant evening in early fall.

It did nothing to protect her from the ferocity of a blizzard taken from the middle of the winter.

If she wasn't already freezing from the snow and wind, Priscilla's heart would have gone cold with that realization. She hadn't planned on more than a light snow cover and spontaneous flurries at the worst - full-on blizzards were unheard of during the middle of summer, even in the high northern altitudes.

Not only that, but all her stuff was in her bag, and she didn't even have it. She figured it, along with everything she owned and her two pokemon, were still probably back in the tunnels of Mount Coronet.

It was Darcy. She did this. Priscilla made her angry, and she must have conjured up a snowstorm and thrown Priscilla into it. It was revenge. She was going to kill Priscilla.

Or, at least, that was what Priscilla thought as she stumbled through the snow, trying to move forward and avoid falling into a snowdrift. Her mind had already started spinning out of control - she was so cold. She figured she had a few minutes before she'd collapse and freeze to death, although she seemed to forget how long a minute actually was.

_Please,_ she thought, squinting against the rush of the oncoming wind-blown snow. _Please, God, save me. _She screwed up her eyes, trying to think about who "God" was. She'd spent her whole life as a part of the Church of Legends, like most people in Sinnoh, but all the origin stories and deities seemed to be eluding her at the moment.

_Great. If I can't even remember who God is, then how is God going to help me?_

She plodded forward, unable to feel her feet but able to hear when they hit the snow.

_It was...an Arrrr pokemon. Arrrrrrrr-something. Arrr says me. Arrrr says us? Arr-say-us? Maybe. Help me, please, Arr-say-us!_

Nothing happened. Priscilla would have started to cry, but it was so cold. And she was going to die out there, anyway, so why bother? Plus, she didn't really want to spent her last few minutes of life crying because she couldn't seem to get God's name right.

Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was a sign that God didn't -

She stopped. She saw something red in the snow right next to her. Reaching out and keeping her jacket sleeve wrapped around her hand, she picked it up and examined it. It was a small ball, one she could roll around in her palm with ease. A thick, inset black line split it into two halves, a white one and a black-and-yellow one, and in the middle of the black band was a white button.

It also felt pretty light - light and empty.

It was a minimized empty ultra ball.

Priscilla glanced around. A few paces ahead was another one. She shoved her way through the snow, grasping at the second one like it would save her life. And a third just next to it! She snatched it up as well, holding the three empty ultra balls up.

_I could catch three new pokemon,_ she thought with glee, shaking as she tried to pull her cold mouth into a smile. _I could catch three new ones and then go somewhere and not die._

It could have been the next second or the next hour - Priscilla couldn't really feel time anymore, it seemed, since it was too cold - but a small brown lump started to shuffle through the snow. She maximized one of the ultra balls and threw it.

The ball captured the lump, landed in the snow, wriggled a few times, and then stopped. Priscilla picked it up and opened it.

The lump reappeared, sniffing her and looking as confused as a fuzzy brown lump could.

Priscilla put a hand on it. Beneath its snow-covered fur, it was _warm._ Really, really, really warm. It was like a furry brown furnace with feet.

"Y-y-y-you're m-my p-po-pok-kemon-n," Priscilla tried to tell it, though her chattering teeth sort of hindered her.

The lump seemed to get the idea, or, at the very least, it didn't protest when Priscilla picked it up and hugged it to her chest. Its warmth helped a lot, and Priscilla figured that by simply hugging it, she could add a whole quarter-hour to her lifespan.

Never mind that she forgot what a "quarter-hour" actually was. The fact of the matter was that the lump was warm, and that was better than being cold because being cold could kill her.

"Swii," the lump said, wriggling forward and out of her grasp. Priscilla opened her mouth to say something in protest, but stopped when she saw the little thing that it was wriggling towards.

It looked like a small blue-and-white child, one with a large, pointy white head. It shivered but stayed in its meditative position as if its thoughts could keep the blizzard at bay.

The child still looked pretty cold, though, so Priscilla wasn't sure if meditating was such a good idea.

The brown lump she caught didn't seem to care or sympathize with the child. Instead, it ran forward and rammed into the child with all its might.

The child kicked it, but the swinub was too fast - it spat out some snow and froze the child's foot.

Priscilla thought her brown lump of a pokemon (because it _had_ to be some sort of pokemon - she'd caught it with a ultra ball, after all) was being rather mean about the whole thing. Here this little kid was, just trying to meditate through a storm, and it was getting beaten up by a strange-looking brown lump with feet.

Or, at least, Priscilla assumed the lump had feet. She couldn't actually see them because it had too much fur.

The lump turned to her when it deemed the small child beaten up enough. "Swii! Nub! Nub _nub_!"

"W-w-what-t?"

The thing kept yelling at her, and finally Priscilla caught on. The little child was a pokemon, too! And the lump wanted her to catch it!

"Ok-kay."

She threw one of the ultra balls, but missed. It sank into a snow drift, rendering it invisible and, therefore, useless.

"Swii!"

Priscilla shivered a bit, maximizing the one ultra ball she had left. One shot at catching the strange little blue-and-white kid. No problem, no problem.

She staggered over to the child and dropped the ball on its head. No chance of missing then, right?

The ball wiggled a few times, then was still.

Priscilla wanted to smile and pick it up, but she couldn't - it was too cold. She was getting sleepy, too. Really, really, really sleepy.

_I think I'll just take a nap,_ she thought, sinking down onto her knees and into the snowdrift. _I did a good job today, catching two pokemon. The brown lump and the little kid...little kid...I didn't kick this one, that's good..._

Her eyes were closing, but she saw the brown lump quickly open the other ultra ball and yell something at the dazed blue-and-white child. The child then said something, and Priscilla suddenly realized there was something other than white all around her.

There was a brown, wood floor, some carpets, a table of some sort, green wallpaper, and a tall woman saying something like, "what is - oh my goodness! I'll call the -"

But Priscilla couldn't hear what else the woman had to say, because then everything went away and all she had was a world of calm, quiet, relaxing blackness.


	21. Blizzard and Vrinda

Chapter 21: Blizzard and Vrinda

_Sun flakes were falling all around her, making soft swishing sounds as they cascaded slowly down from the brilliant blue sky._

_She was lying on the ground, feeling the warm flakes settle on and around her, covering her with gold. Priscilla liked the feel of the flakes - although they kind of piled on her stomach a lot. She pushed them off. They felt weird on her stomach, and only seemed to settle there._

_But it was so peaceful. There was no snow, no world of darkness, just a nice summer day, watching the sun flakes drift down from the sky._

_Something in the back of her mind told her this was important somehow. No, it wasn't in the back of her mind - it was behind her. She tried to crane her neck back to see the person behind her, but she was so relaxed, she didn't want to move._

_So she didn't._

_She just closed her eyes and listened, trying to understand the person behind her even though she was so sleepy._

"_...Beatrice...Beatrice...Beatrice..."_

"_...Gold..."_

_---_

Priscilla woke up to another world of white, but this time one that was not cold and sounded more like a chorus of beeping machines than a whirling snowstorm.

A flurry of activity surrounded her, mostly marked by people clothed primarily in white lab coats running around, doing checks and assessing things on various machines. None of them seemed to notice her until she tried to ask them something, and then they all stopped.

"Oh, you're awake!" one of the nurses exclaimed, and then they started swirling around her again, checking things and asking her questions and taking various readings.

Priscilla couldn't really understand what was going on, since everything seemed almost as surreal as the dream she just had, though she was fast forgetting what it was about.

The doctors kept asking her questions, telling her things that swept through her mind and settled in the back in a jumble.

A few hours later, they left to give her some time to rest.

But when that happened, she was wide awake, processing the things they told her instead of sleeping.

She got caught on the wilderness around Route 216.

Without snow gear.

She almost froze to death - how could she have been so stupid?

She was lucky to have responded to the emergency rewarming treatment so well, so she didn't have any permanent damage from her frostbite.

Her pokemon were in those two ultra balls.

It was October 10.

She had arrived in the hospital emergency room in Celestic Town on October 2 before being moved to the larger university hospital in Jubilife City on October 5.

Priscilla frowned, staring at the strange ultra balls on her lap. The doctors had told her that if she wanted, she could let out her pokemon as long as they didn't perform any attacks while in the room. She tried to ask why Tor and Jet were in ultra balls, since they used to be in a regular pokeball and safari ball, respectively, but the doctors just ignored her. Plus, the ultra balls didn't bother her as much as the date did.

October 10.

She'd been taken to the Celestic Town emergency room on October 2.

But she left Celestic Town for Snowpoint City back in July. Priscilla couldn't remember the exact date, but it was definitely in July - early July at that.

So then how could it have been October? It didn't make sense...

The doctors had left, giving her time to herself. Her condition was stable, so...

With a quick flick of her hand, Priscilla pushed both ultra balls off her lap and onto the floor, releasing two pokemon she vaguely recognized but did not truly remember. She vaguely remembered using the phrases "brown lump" and "blue-and-white child" to describe them during her surreal time in the blizzard, and those descriptions fit well enough despite her ability to name their species.

The brown lump was a swinub, the blue-and-white child a meditite, and both were looking at her expectantly. (Or, at least, she assumed the swinub was. She couldn't see its eyes.)

"Hi," Priscilla said, though her voice already seemed to be cracking. Something about these strange pokemon, even though they saved her life from the blizzard, just seemed to make her want to cry.

It was probably because they weren't Jet and Tor.

They weren't even Darcy - though seeing Darcy at this point would have probably been worse. Seeing Darcy probably would have Priscilla scream and try to run away instead of crying.

But they were so...so _different._

"Hi," she repeated, sniffing afterwards. "Um, th-thanks for s-saving my life," she managed to get out before sobs took over her body. Priscilla leaned forward, crying into her hands.

Then a small hand was patting her on the back. "_I don't know you,_" a strange female voice told her in her head, much like how Darcy used to but still completely different, "_but you're welcome. And the swinub says he wants you to smile and stop crying, since you're alive. I think he's worried. He seems like a nice guy._"

Priscilla lifted her head to see the meditite standing on her bed next to her and the swinub using the side of the bed to life his body up to look at her. She smiled a bit, petting the swinub on the head. "Thanks," she repeated. Then she turned to the meditite, trying to focus on something that didn't involve crying, like questions. "So, uh, y-you can talk?"

The meditite shrugged. "_Through telepathy, yeah. I'm pretty good at psychic stuff, since that's all you do in snow - meditate. And fight, but, you know,_" she shrugged. "_My name's Vrinda, by the way. You're Priscilla Vo, right?_"

"You know my name?" Priscilla gasped, a little worried. How much could the tiny psychic read in her mind? She didn't want anybody to know about the world Darcy had dragged her into. That, however terrifying it may have been, was private. Talking about it seemed like it would make it come to life again.

Vrinda sniggered. "_It's on the whiteboards where they check off stuff about your condition,_" she said, pointing. Indeed, there were whiteboards with "Priscilla Vo" written all over them. "_Seriously, it wasn't hard._"

Priscilla couldn't help it - she had to chuckle. It kind of hurt to do it, since she was still crying and laughing while crying always seemed weird, but she had to. It really was kind of funny. "So, um," she said, turning to the swinub, "you don't have a name?"

The swinub snuffled something. Silence hung over the group of three until Vrinda finally asked, "_Do you not understand pokemon speech? Like...at all?_"

Their new trainer looked away uncomfortably. "Not...exactly." It was all Darcy's fault, Priscilla figured. It was her fault about everything. If she hadn't translated everything into Priscilla's head for her, Priscilla would have had to learn to understand her pokemon.

But she did, so Priscilla didn't.

"_Well, he says he doesn't have a name._"

Shaking Darcy off her mind, Priscilla turned back to the swinub. "Can, um, can I call you...Blizzard? Maybe Bliz for short?" she asked, unable to get anything other than the blizzard off her mind once she rid it of her old so-called misdreavus.

The swinub, Blizzard, seemed to like this name enough, because he made a sort of nodding motion from the floor.

"_Well, now that that's settled,_" Vrinda said, edging herself back into Priscilla's view. "_Both, um, 'Bliz' and I are wondering: what exactly do you plan to do with us?_"

Priscilla frowned. "What do you mean?"

The ultra balls then floated into the air as Vrinda raised her tiny white hands, using her psychic powers for levitation. "_You did catch us. We were actually glad to help you, since it's kinda freaky when people die right next to you, to tell you the truth. But now that you're fine, we wanna know what you want to do with us._"

Priscilla blinked. "Um...battle?"

Vrinda and Blizzard exchanged a glance, and Vrinda, apparently the ringleader between the two of them, shrugged in response. "_Good enough. We're both close to evolution, and I would totally KILL to be a medicham. Pretty sure he's psyched to be a piloswine, too, maybe a mamoswine,_" she added when Blizzard mumbled something. "_So as long as you train us, we're cool with it. But if you get...tricky, we'll beat you up, destroy our ultra balls, and teleport back to Route 216. Okay?_"

Vrinda's proposition reminded her vaguely of Darcy, but the meditite's playful adolescent tone of voice kept it from sounding too dire. Priscilla managed to coax a smile onto her face. "S-sounds good."

---

Later that day, when Vrinda and Blizzard were sleeping in their ultra balls, Priscilla was watching television. It was actually really relaxing, since she got to watch cartoons that reminded her of simpler days - the days before she found out her mom had Poltergeist's Disease.

Then something horrible happened.

The television died.

One of the nurses came in to tell her that the television was down throughout the whole building, and that it would be another hour before it would come on.

Grumbling and bored, the ten-year-old sat back against her pillow, trying to think of a way to pass the time without thinking about anything remotely traumatic.

Her eyes scanned the room, seeing various pieces of equipment that were no use to curing her boredom and her ultra balls, which were too far out of reach to try and call out Vrinda or Blizzard to talk to. Just as she was about to give up and accept her bored fate, she saw a red object on the table next to her bed, sitting on top of her change of clothes (which had magically survived the blizzard).

She leaned over and picked it up, realizing it was her Pokedex.

It seemed extra smooth and cool to the touch, and somehow the "new" texture reminded Priscilla that the Pokedex had gone with her through not just the blizzard, but the dark world, too.

Too bored to care about the glitches it contained, she flipped it open. She set it to the scan setting, holding it up to scan each of her ultra balls.

Both her swinub and meditite came up as pixellated noise, just like Jet had back when she first got the Pokedex. It sort of calmed her down to equate Blizzard and Vrinda to Jet, since Jet had been the "normal" one of her three old pokemon. Tor had been a wonderful pokemon to have on her team, but he had those panic attacks...and his picture in the Pokedex was of a deformed turtwig.

One, Priscilla realized with a shudder, that vaguely resembled how the body she found in Eterna City had resembled the legendary pokemon Shaymin. And, a voice in the back of her mind added, how the monster Darcy turned into (or maybe was all the time) resembled Giratina.

She shook that from her mind; after all, Darcy's image in the Pokedex had been that of a normal misdreavus.

Maybe this meant that like Jet, Blizzard and Vrinda would be normal. Maybe this meant that they, just like Jet had tried so hard to do, would want to protect Priscilla, not harm her or succumb to panic attacks at the worst possible moment.

No, no. Priscilla shook her head. She couldn't blame Tor - he tried his best, he did nothing wrong. Neither did Jet. It was all _Darcy's_ fault. She was to blame.

Priscilla decided she now hated Darcy. It amazed her how she could have gone from careful adoration to fear to hatred in such a short time, despite the strange three-month time jump she seemed to have experienced.

She sighed, absentmindedly pressing buttons on her Pokedex.

Then her eyes widened. She squinted, holding the Pokedex up to the light.

The Pokedex screen didn't just look noisy anymore - no, no, its contents were perfectly clear. Neat text spread across the screen, reading:

"ARE YOU PRISCILLA VO?"

Priscilla almost dropped the Pokedex. "Wh-why do you want to know?" she gasped, though a second later she wondered why she thought vocally addressing the Pokedex would have been a good idea.

The text cleared, then new text reappeared, reading: "THIS POKEDEX IS LICENSED TO PRISCILLA VO. ARE YOU PRISCILLA VO?"

"Y-yes," Priscilla answered, not exactly sure whether to be scared, intrigued, or both.

"GOOD. MY NAME IS BEATRICE. I AM HERE TO HELP YOU."

"B-Beatrice?" The name sounded familiar to Priscilla - she had heard it before, but she couldn't remember where. Her gut told her it had something to do with Darcy, like...

Of course! Darcy and that girl with Priscilla's voice! They had mentioned somebody named Beatrice.

Except...

Priscilla gulped. "A-aren't you...supposed...to be..." she shivered, "...dead?"

When the previous messaged cleared and the new message finished appearing, Priscilla looked at it and shivered again. "YES. I HAVE DIED."

"I don't want anymore ghosts!" Priscilla shouted, closing her eyes and trying to think about a ghost that _wasn't _Darcy. "I hate ghosts! I hate them! G-go away!"

After a minute passed, Priscilla opened her eyes. The Pokedex had a new message. "I AM NOT A GHOST. I AM A HAELLIAD."

Priscilla frowned. "W-what?"

The message remained the same: "I AM NOT A GHOST. I AM A HAELLIAD."

She needed a different question. "What's a hay...ha-eh...um, 'hay-lee-ad'?"

"I CANNOT ANSWER THAT QUESTION. DO YOU HAVE THE GRIMOIRE?"

"No..."

"GET THE GRIMOIRE. I CANNOT SPEAK TO YOU FOR VERY LONG. I PROMISE TO HELP YOU AS LONG AS YOU ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES. DO YOU ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES?"

Priscilla squirmed in her bed. "I - I don't know. W-what consequences?"

"DO YOU THINK POLTERGEIST'S DISEASE IS A NORMAL DISEASE?"

"M-maybe, I don't know!"

"DO YOU THINK IT IS STRANGE THAT YOUR MOTHER HAS THE DISEASE AND YOU DON'T?"

Priscilla bit her lip. She'd heard the doctors talking about the disease in Jubilife City while they were examining her, and they'd mentioned that there seemed to be a slightly higher chance of relatives -

"N-no! I'm not - I'm not..." Priscilla trailed off. "M-my mom isn't...I'm not...I-I'm not..." She bit her lip, starting to cry.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET THE DISEASE."

"What?!" Priscilla dropped the Pokedex, stopped crying immediately, and began to scratch her neck. Only sheer willpower caused her to stop - that, and the memory of Darcy being the only one to stop her before. She didn't want to rely on Darcy anymore, because now she hated Darcy.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET THE DISEASE," the Pokedex, or Beatrice, repeated.

Priscilla took a deep breath. "W-why don't I..." She couldn't finish.

It was okay, though, because a new message appeared onscreen: "SOMEBODY HAS BEEN PULLING STRINGS."

Before Priscilla could answer, though, a new message flashed: "I CANNOT TALK. I APOLOGIZE. I MUST GO. PRAY THAT I MAY COME BACK TO HELP YOU LATER, PRISCILLA VO."

And then the text disappeared, and her Pokedex screen turned to noise once again.

It took Priscilla a few moments to realize how fast her heartbeat had turned. She closed the Pokedex and put it back on her folded clothes, hugging herself. "W-what?" she whispered, unable to speak loudly. "W-who? P-pulling...s-strings?"

But before anybody could answer, a familiar person walked into her room, followed by the sound of a doctor's voice protesting: "It's not visiting hours!"

The young woman didn't seem to care, because before Priscilla knew it, Dawn, the next-in-line Champion of Sinnoh, was standing by her bed.

"Priscilla Vo," she said, narrowing her eyes and tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. If anybody could pull off "menacing' while wearing a short, pink dress-coat over white pants, Dawn certainly could. "You need to tell me exactly what happened during the three months you disappeared. And," Dawn added, her dark gray eyes narrowing even further, "you'd better damn well tell me the truth, because your mother's life could very well depend on it."

---

Author's Note: Beatrice is an homage to the visual novel, _Umineko no Naku Koro Ni_, and the Beatrice of _Umineko_ is an homage to Dante's _Divine Comedy_. The scratching at the neck is an homage to _Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, _which is the prequel to _Umineko._ So for any future instances where Beatrice shows up, it's an homage.


	22. Dawn and Dusk

Chapter 22: Dawn and Dusk

"So you said she asked for a dusk stone?" Dawn asked as she and Priscilla sat at a table in one of the shopping plazas in Jubilife City.

Priscilla nodded as she scooped frozen yogurt into her mouth. While she swore once she woke up on the hospital that she would never eat frozen desserts again due to her apparent blizzard trauma, she couldn't say no to fresh frozen yogurt with kiwi topping when Dawn offered to pay for it.

Plus, it really helped that it wasn't at all like hospital food.

The odd thing was, it was because of the hospital that Priscilla was currently sitting in a sunny plaza eating frozen yogurt on a heat-wave October day, probably the last warm-ish day Jubilife would experience for the rest of the year. When Dawn came in the night before to interrogate Priscilla, the doctors protested. Dawn later made a compromise with them to allow Priscilla to go out to lunch one day before her official discharge.

Although, considering the doctors hung around within earshot during visiting hours, Priscilla wondered if the out-to-lunch interrogation was Dawn's plan all along.

Dawn frowned, playing with her yogurt more than eating it. "Did she ask why?"

Priscilla shrugged. "To evolve?"

"But you said you had reason to believe she _wasn't_ a normal misdreavus, possibly not a real one at all."

"Um, yeah, I guess so."

"Then why would she need the dusk stone? Did she specifically _tell_ you it was for evolution?"

Priscilla leaned back, trying to remember, but it was hard to think of something as dark and evil and hated as Darcy when her eyes were locked on a bright blue sky framed by tall Jubilife City skyscrapers.

She tried to turn her memory back to when she met Darcy, that night in Eterna Forest...

Her eyes closed as she tried to think.

Tor and Jet were with her that night, and they heard sounds outside their tent that turned out to be wild pokemon getting thrown at things. She sent...one of them - both of them? - out to attack it or protect herself, and...Darcy beat them. Whichever one it was. Probably Jet.

Then Darcy said she'd kill her, but...but then she mentioned Zenith, and Darcy suddenly turned her interests away from killing Priscilla and proposed a deal: she'd win Priscilla three badges and in return, Priscilla would find her a dusk stone.

But did she say what she wanted the dusk stone for?

Priscilla bit her lip, trying to visualize herself in Eterna Forest, but all she could come up with was the twisted sunflower-tree forest from the world Darcy ended up dragging her into.

As soon as that image came into her mind's eye, Priscilla opened her eyes. She didn't want to see anything relating to that world. Instead, she looked at Dawn, the twenty-two-year-old who Cynthia had already designated as her heir as political champion of Sinnoh.

And then, just like magic, when she took her mind off Darcy, she remembered what Darcy had said:

"_Yes, you see - you need something from me, and that's badges...and you can get me something I want. You're traveling, and you'll probably come across some place where you can find a dusk stone." Darcy asked, her body still invisible in the darkness and her name not yet known._

"_They evolve...some pokemon...right?"_

"_Right. Now, why do you suppose I'd want one of those?"_

_Priscilla took a step backward. "Because...you'd evolve?"_

"_Riiight," the disembodied voice said, and Priscilla could almost hear a too-wide smile..._

"She didn't say anything," Priscilla gasped, shaking away the memory before it sped up to her last encounter with Darcy. "She just asked if I knew what a dusk stone was, and I said I did, and she asked why I thought she'd want one, and I said that it's because it could make her evolve, and then she just went, 'riiight', and," she took a deep breath, having used up all her air on her run-on sentence, "then she said I should agree 'cause otherwise she'd kill me."

Dawn blinked a few times, obviously having trouble comprehending Priscilla's fast, breathless speech. But then she nodded. "So, then, she really didn't confirm she wanted the stone for evolution?"

Priscilla shook her head. "I, um, don't think so..."

The older girl nodded, thought for a moment in silence, then stood up. "Well, Priscilla, that's all the information I need. Although," she added, leaning in closely and lowering her voice, "I really don't believe you when you say Darcy teleported you out from the tunnels in Mount Coronet to the blizzard on Route 216. Something happened in between, and it's something you remember."

Priscilla shrunk against Dawn's hard stare, but she still shook her head. No matter how helpful it could have been, she did _not _want to tell anybody about the dark world.

"And you didn't use your Pokedex at all, even though it was with you the whole time?"

Once again, she shook her head - but that was technically the truth, since she didn't use her Pokedex until _after_ she woke up in the hospital. But she wasn't about to tell Dawn that, either.

Dawn gave her one last look, one that made Priscilla think she could see through the lies-by-omission, then stood up straight. "Well, then I guess we're done. Let's go back to the hospital. We'll come pick you up tomorrow when you're discharged."

They started to walk back to the hospital along the busy city road, and a few moments passed before Priscilla fully processed Dawn's deceptively-subtle hint. "Wait - 'we'?"

---

"Hey, Priscilla," Lucas said as he stood next Dawn in the lobby. Priscilla's jaw dropped, causing Vrinda and Blizzard to poke and prod her until she closed her mouth. Lucas just smiled lazily, his beret-like hat tipped down at a jaunty angle. "Long time no see."

And next to him stood a glimmering roserade with black and purple roses. She grinned up at Priscilla, giving a quick wave with her purple hand. "Rooh."

"Rosie says hi," Lucas added, nodding to his roserade. "Before you ask, she's doing much better. She just needed a bit of tough training and the promise of a shiny stone."

Priscilla smiled weakly, waving back at what used to be her second pokemon. Seeing her old roselia turned into a roserade brought back the wrong memories - not of being brutally attacked by a freshly-caught roselia, but of Darcy shrieking when Gardenia's roselia attacked her. "_Roserade's a shiny stone evolution. I can't hit them as well..."_

She shook her head, trying to get Darcy off her mind. "Um," she looked back down at Vrinda and Blizzard, somewhat relieved to see that both of them had a type advantage against Roserade, just in case history decided to repeat itself. "So, can, uh, can I leave?"

Dawn rolled her eyes, already holding release papers. Lucas just smiled kindly. "Of course. There's somebody I'd like to take you to - a few people, actually. They're with Barry. Follow us."

He and Roserade turned, walking out of the hospital into the autumn sunlight. Dawn motioned for Priscilla to follow, and Priscilla and her two new pokemon stepped out of the hospital for the last time, joining the rest of their famous party in the streaming sunshine.

---

"MOM!"

Two seconds later, Priscilla launched herself at her mother's seated form, hugging her tightly and trying not to cry.

"Priscilla," her mother whispered, stroking her daughter's hair. "Priscilla, dear, it's so good to see you."

Priscilla brought her head away from her mother's shoulders to look at her eyes - her grey eyes were clear and bright, no signs of bleeding around them. She didn't appear to be itching under her skin, but Priscilla thought she could see red scratch marks on a couple places on her mother's arms.

So that meant she had the second symptom, Priscilla realized. But if there was no bloodstain around her eyes, then her mother, Amelia Vo, must have had top-notch medication. That meant there wasn't much to worry about...except...

"Mom, you have medicine, right?" Priscilla asked, a wave of nerves tumbling through her stomach.

Amelia smiled and nodded. "Yes. I'm now being treated at the Jubilife Univeristy Cancer Research Center. They're studying Poltergeist's there, and even though they're sure it's not a cancer, I'm getting wonderful treatment while they continue the study."

Priscilla bit her bottom lip. Jubilife University had a well-known medical school, and it was _expensive. _Even though her mother was taking part in a study... "H-how did you pay? Isn't it expensive?"

"Yes, it would have been," Amelia said in a low tone of voice, looking a bit embarrassed, "if your friend Lucas hadn't have recommended me. A lot of famous people seem to be affiliated with the Center, and they're helping me pay. It's really not as expensive as it should be."

A small voice in the back of her head that sounded too much like Darcy told her there was a string attached, that there had to be. Famous people, especially ones who saved the region twelve years ago from Team Galactic, didn't just go around picking lower-middle class single mothers for discounted disease treatment. Not unless they wanted something.

But Priscilla shook the voice, though not the voice's message, from her head, and just focused on telling her mother all that had happened since they last spoke over three months before.

---

Later that day, Barry, the third member of the Pokedex Trio, gave Priscilla another reunion: one with her bag. Apparently he found it in the Coronet tunnels near the mouth to Route 216, which he happened to be in a couple days after Priscilla mysteriously disappeared. Priscilla thought this seemed a bit too convenient, but the appearance of her bag gave her enough relief to counter any suspicions.

Her bag didn't seem to have anything missing, either. Priscilla found everything she'd brought with her, save for the clothes she'd worn that day and her Pokedex.

She pulled out three pokeballs, one from the Great Marsh safari and two regulars. All three opened, though only two pokemon appeared.

"Um, can I have some time to introduce my team?" Priscilla asked, and all the other people left the room without a word. She turned back to see Blizzard and Vrinda staring awkwardly at a familiar yanma and turtwig from across her mother's new apartment's living room.

Before she could rejoice at seeing Jet and Tor alive or introduce them to Blizzard and Vrinda, she remembered that there were _three _old pokeballs, not two.

She pointed to one of the normal pokeballs. "Tor, is this yours?"

"Twig," Tor replied, nodding his head.

Priscilla picked up the other one, staring at it for a few moments without speaking. _Darcy's pokeball..._

"I'll be right back."

She took slow steps as she left the apartment and the building, walking outside and around to the back. Once she was out of sight of anybody on the street, she placed Darcy's pokeball on the pavement, brought her foot up, and smashed it down on the metal sphere.

"I HATE YOU!" Priscilla screamed as she slammed her foot down on the shards again and again. "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE - urgh...sniff..."

Then she found herself doubling over the remains of the pokeball and sobbing, some small part of her wishing Darcy was still around.

But most of her hated Darcy, and that part told the small part that smashing the pokeball was a good idea. It meant she'd never, ever have to see Darcy again.

And that was probably the best thing that happened to Priscilla since she left home on April 1.

---

"Oh, and I picked this up for you," Barry said that morning as they all sat down for breakfast. Amelia and her daughter didn't expect to ever be outnumbered by celebrities while eating breakfast, but there they were, two-to-three. Priscilla almost yelped as Barry tossed a red turtle-decorated jacket at her.

She looked at it for a moment, trying to remember where - oh, right. NamNar. Eterna City. Her jacket.

Of course.

Inside one of the pockets, in fact, was a small note:

"Don't be an idiot, Priscilla, whoever you are. Keep your jacket with you. And if you don't, Des will -"

The rest was burned off, so Priscilla shrugged and dropped the paper on the floor. (Though she picked it up to throw away when her mother gave her a reprimanding look.)

"So, Priscilla, Amelia," Dawn said, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin. "Here is the situation for the foreseeable future."

Amelia sighed, and Priscilla frowned. What were they talking about?

Dawn nodded, her gaze steely. "The moment Priscilla disappeared, computers in hospitals and Pokemon Centers all over Sinnoh were hacked. All the hackers were looking for were names, and among them were your names."

"The Pastoria City Hospital was deemed unsafe for your mother," Lucas explained to Priscilla when she looked confused. "We thought she had a stalker, and moved her to Jubilife City where we could better keep an eye on her. That's why you're here, too, instead of Celestic Town. In actuality, the hospital in Celestic has a great frostbite recovery department."

"As I was saying," Dawn hissed, and Lucas shut up. "It would be better for Amelia to stay in Jubilife, where Lucas will continue to bodyguard her while she receives treatment."

Amelia sighed. "Thank you for all of this," she mumbled, a little embarrassed.

Then the young woman turned to face Priscilla. "And you need to keep going as usual. Your name will start popping up in Pokemon Centers and gym records, but I'll go with you to make sure nothing too terrible happens to you."

Priscilla almost choked on her oatmeal. Not only did she have to travel with another trainer, but _Dawn?_ The girl who would succeed Cynthia as _primary champion of the entire region_? That was definitely _not_ something that planned on doing when she left her Pastoria City home.

"Um, okay."

"Where do you plan on going next?" Dawn asked.

Priscilla shrugged. "Um, I dunno..."

From across the table, Barry rolled his eyes and groaned. "What pokemon do you have?" he asked, sounding more than a little impatient.

"Well, um, I have a yanma and my turtwig, and then I just caught a swinub and a meditite -"

"I'm assuming your turtwig is gonna evolve soon," Barry said in a tone of voice that reminded Priscilla that he had a fully evolved _torterra_, "because if he doesn't, I think something might be wrong."

Priscilla bit her lip. "Um, I think he will...and my swinub and meditite, too."

"How about Oreburgh?" Lucas offered from his seat next to Priscilla. "She can fight three-on-three with her turtwig, swinub, and meditite and have an advantage with each, doubly so if she evolves them prior to the match."

"Great, that settles it." Dawn stood up, pulling on her white hat. "Priscilla and I will go to Oreburgh, Lucas and Amelia will stay here in Jubilife, and Barry," she said, looking at her hometown rival and best friend, "will follow the trail of this 'Beatrice' person."

Priscilla almost choked again. "B-Beatrice?"

"Do you know her?" the young woman asked, her grey eyes cold.

The younger trainer shook her head. "I-I just heard her name s-somewhere," she stuttered, not wanting to say anything about her conversation with "Beatrice" on her Pokedex only a few days prior.

Dawn sighed. "Fine. Ready to go?"

Priscilla looked at her mother. Amelia smiled and held out her arms for a hug, which Priscilla dove into. "I know you are, honey," she whispered.

When Priscilla stepped away from her mother, she had a (slightly) determined face on. "Ready."

---

"_Hey, Lisa,_" Lisa's glameow, Tora, asked as she sat on the dorm room bed. Lisa was scurrying around, moving things into bookcases and shelves before her roommate arrived and took all the space she wanted. "_What's this book?_"

Lisa looked up, brushing her tan hair out of her eyes. She followed Tora's lazy gaze to see a black book with a red gem on the cover, one labeled "Grimoire". "Oh, that?" She smiled shakily. "That's just my good luck book. It doesn't mean anything."

Tora's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. Far be it from her to call her new trainer on a lie.

On the other side of the room, Lisa's first pokemon stood, staring back at Tora. Tora never really liked Heat, though she accepted her role as subordinate to him on the team (though she'd never actually let Heat _know_ that).

But for once, she felt that he was on her side.

"_Do you know about this book, Heat?_" Tora asked when Lisa left the room to go put her toiletries in her cubby in the dorm floor bathroom. "_I mean, it's so painfully obvious she's lying._"

"_If you speak badly about her again, I'll rip you open and burn you to a crisp,_" Heat spat back, his neck igniting. He really was lucky Lisa's dorm room was made of cinderblocks and was fireproof, Tora thought.

Shrugging, the glameow turned her back and curled into a ball on Lisa's bed. She stole a glance at the book, though, when she did.

Heat didn't understand - he was from Johto. But she wasn't; she was a freshly-caught Sinnoh native.

It could have just been a feeling, a glimmer of paranoia in her small feline brain, but Tora knew there was something about that book that wasn't right, and more to the story than Heat or Lisa seemed to want to tell.

She knew that if she got Lion and Tune out (Lisa's other two Sinnoh-caught pokemon: a shinx and a kricketune, respectively), they'd agree.

The book, "Grimoire", had been out of Sinnoh for a very long time. Now it was back.

Even though Tora didn't know if that was a good or bad thing, she knew something would happen because of it.

But she didn't know what, and she didn't care to find out or ponder it. Instead, she ignored the bad feeling in her gut and her sudden sense of impending doom, and went to sleep.


	23. Coal

Chapter 23: Coal

"_You said it wasn't going to be this way. But it was. You lied to me."_

"_...I know. I'm sorry," she said, grinding her foot into the pavement. She didn't want to look it in the eye._

"_I trusted you. You betrayed me."_

"_You...you left me."_

_One eye ahead of her narrowed. "I left you because you were going to mess everything up. After you PROMISED me you weren't, it became clear to me you weren't going to keep your promise."_

"_I'm...I'm really sorry."_

"_You'd better be."_

_Then the book in her hands opened and swallowed her before she could even begin to respond._

---

Lisa woke up drenched with sweat and gasping for air. Her roommate, Grace, didn't even budge, due to the fact that Grace was a _very_ heavy sleeper. Perhaps it had something to do with growing up in the Battle Area of Sinnoh's Northeast Island.

"Well, I'm not getting back to sleep," the freshman muttered, standing up and walking over to the window. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and grabbed a water bottle from their minifridge, staring out over the pastures of sleeping pokemon towards the mountains in the west. She sighed, rubbing her eyes - they were starting to itch. "Sinnoh is freaking messed _up_," she growled, trying to focus on something else. "Allergies in freaking _October._"

Again, she missed the soft fall season of southern Johto. Sure, it got cold, but not _that_ cold. Grace said it would probably start snowing within a week, and the snow would probably stick, too.

Which was messed up, too. New Bark Town didn't get sticking snow until December, unless it was a particularly cold year. In that case, it came in November.

But never freaking _October._

"This region is stupid," she grumbled again before digging around through her bookcase, trying to find something to bide her time until she either fell asleep or had to go to class. Her fingers rested on her favorite romance novel and home of her favorite romantic hero, _Pride and Prejudice, _but her eyes caught something else.

The black, dirty spine of _that_ book seemed to pull her eyes toward it, and Lisa immediately pulled her fingers away from Jane Austin and put them on _that_ book. She pulled it out, feeling its weight both in her hands and on her heart.

Her "good luck" book.

"Grimoire," she whispered, reading the only word she could recognize. "Man, this book..."

She settled back down on the bed, flipping through the book and looking at the strange writing. Finally she stopped on the "list page", as she called it, and stared at it. It had been awhile since she'd flipped through the unreadable book, but...

Since when were things crossed out on the list page?

Lisa frowned. She didn't remember taking a pen to the book, and she couldn't think of a time in which she might do something like that and not remember. Was it Heat? One of her other pokemon? One of her friends?

But nobody touched the book, save her. And...

Those lines were so _straight._ Surely if somebody had vandalized her book, the lines wouldn't look so perfect. There'd be some sort of waver in the lines, or the ink would have trailed off towards the end of the line.

Lisa snorted. "It's like they were drawn by a psy...chic..."

As she said it, her idea came to her.

"A psychic," she repeated, quickly glancing over at Grace. No movement. That girl could seriously sleep through _anything._ "A...psychic..."

Suddenly, she stood, holding the book close to her. Scratching at the sides of her eyes and cursing her seasonal allergies (and Sinnoh's "weirdness", as her first pokemon would put it), she grabbed a backpack and started shoving things into it, the book and her six filled capture devices included.

A quick glance towards her clock told her that it was only 1:29 in the morning, and since Lisa's first class wasn't until nine and her desired destination was only a fifteen-minute walk away, she figured she had plenty of time.

Lisa softly padded over to the door, opened it, closed it, and stole down the hallway. She managed to get out without anybody hearing, which meant no awkward conversations with late-night studying perfectionists or wasted, party-riddled slackers.

Once she stepped out into the night air, she let her best friend come out.

"Hey, Heat," she said as the typhlosion materialized. "You still remember that attack the monks taught you way back when?"

Immediately, he ignited his neck to a certain temperature, giving Lisa enough of a radius of light to comfortably start walking into the eastern hills. "_Where're we going?_" Heat whined. "_I'm sleepy._"

"Hopefully," Lisa mumbled, keeping her eyes trained on her target: the caves of the Solaceon Ruins, "we're going to go meet and old _friend_."

Heat snorted. "_Doesn't sound like a very friendly friend._"

"Yeah, well, you remember how we left things."

"_If I'm thinkin' 'bout who you are, then yeah, I guess I see what you mean._" Heat bore his teeth, growling a bit. "_And that little worm better not think she can get away with her little tricks this time. I'm not a stupid little cyndaquil anymore._"

Lisa smiled a bit. "No, you're not. You're a stupid big typhlosion."

"_Shut up, or I'm hitting you over the head with that weird book._"

"Don't," his trainer muttered, suddenly feeling a knot in her chest when she remembered why she was going. "I think we're going to need that book."

Heat grinned. "_'Bout time._"

---

"..._Now_ do you think we're ready for the gym?" Priscilla asked, drenched with sweat. She never realized that training with Dawn meant training _herself_, too. Or, at least, running alongside her pokemon and jumping away whenever one of their adversaries got too close to her.

Dawn shrugged. "If you want. I guess so." She glanced over at Priscilla's gym challenge team, giving them a once-over. Jet hung in the air over them, buzzing softly as he kept aloft. He looked the most alive out of all of them, but that was because he wasn't going to be part of the gym challenge team and therefore, didn't have to do all the training that Dawn wanted. "Eh," she shrugged again, "they look okay. But that ice-type -"

"Bliz," Priscilla corrected.

"- 'Bliz' is still a bit shaky on his attack..."

"He's fine," the younger trained groaned. "They're fine. It's all fine, okay? I just need this badge!"

Dawn gave Priscilla a strange look. "Why're you so impatient all of a sudden?"

Priscilla shrugged. "I dunno."

"You're going to need a better reason than that if you lose tomorrow," the young woman replied as she and her empoleon turned. "See you at the gym."

Priscilla stared as her champion trainer-trainer walked away. Jet landed lightly on her head. "_Good luck,_" he buzzed, even though he knew perfectly well Priscilla couldn't understand him. "_You do well. Team good._"

"I don't know what you said, but thanks, I guess," she muttered, though her mind wasn't really on Jet.

And Jet knew that.

But he figured he'd just be polite. After all, three months without his trainer - although he had been with Barry the whole time - made him realize that Priscilla wasn't _all_ bad, just really, really, really irritating.

So he figured he'd just be polite and somewhat supportive, even though Priscilla didn't seem to want to use him in any battles _at all,_ nor did she appear to be making any progress with understanding her pokemon sans evil ghost.

But maybe once they, the other three, got her a third gym badge, Jet thought as he surveyed the other (stronger) members of his team, she'd decide to train him again.

After all, if that ghost ever decided to come back, he and Priscilla both knew he'd be the best choice to pit against her. And he wanted to rip her apart with a signal beam attack more than anything.

---

"Razor leaf!"

The large turtle growled, his bush-covered plated back twitching before spitting out a whirl of sharp leaves. Roark's graveler barely had a chance - it went down with Tor's first attack.

"Graveler is unable to battle!" the referee, a young woman with a hard hat in addition to her standard Pokemon League uniform, called, holding up a flag in Priscilla's direction. "The challenger's grotle wins the round."

"Nice turtle-thing you got there," Roark called from the other side of the rocky arena. He grinned, showing off a set of pearly white teeth and a killer smile. Twelve years had passed since he started as a gym leader, and he'd turned from a gangly teenager to a buff, handsome, confidant adult. A few female members of the crowd sighed unhappily when Graveler went down, and even Dawn looked a bit entranced by his rugged charm. "I remember a couple other guys with that kinda pokemon. It's cool."

"Th-thanks," Priscilla mumbled, not quite used to making small talk during a gym match. "Um, I wanna switch out..."

"Sure, go ahead. Onix!" A large, rocky snake appeared on the battlefield as Roark threw his second pokeball.

Priscilla bit her lip. _Okay, calm down, calm down,_ she thought to herself. _Just follow the plan, and if it doesn't work, then Tor can help out._ "Blizzard!"

A larger brown lump appeared on the field, one complete with two gleaming tusks and a large pink nose in between. "Pilo," he snorted, shuffling forward a little.

"Mud bomb," Priscilla said as Roark ordered a screech from his onix. The rock snake opened his mouth and let loose a horrible, nails-on-chalkboard sound, causing Blizzard to wince and let down his defenses. Nevertheless, he swished his head forward, scraping his tusks against the soft earth, throwing the makeshift mud across the field towards his foe.

Much to Priscilla's joy, some of the mud hit the onix's left eye, partially blinding him for the match. _Lower accuracy,_ Priscilla thought with a grin. She was starting to get into this. Now she had powerful pokemon that _didn't _want to kill her.

_No, no,_ she thought. _Don't think about Darcy, don't think about Darcy, don't think about Darcy..._

Which didn't help at _all_, because focusing on not thinking about Darcy made Priscilla think about Darcy.

In fact, she became so caught up with the not-thinking-but-thinking-anyway that Blizzard had to assume she wanted an icy wind, since she wanted to attack from across the arena and the onix's rock tomb had already missed.

He opened his fur-covered mouth and blew, letting the cold breath of air pick up ice as it moved across the arena to the onix, scoring a critical hit...

And knocking it out.

Priscilla blinked. Did she overtrain? That was a first...

"Onix is unable to battle, round goes to the challenger's piloswine," the referee said with a yawn. She obviously seemed a bit bored and jaded to the fact that her employer was losing. Priscilla assumed she wasn't a Roark fangirl.

Roark still grinned, though Priscilla could see that he felt frustrated underneath it all. "Rampardos," he said through gritted teeth, and a moment later, a hulking blue-and-black dinosaur appeared, its fortified head bowed and ready to attack.

Priscilla took a deep breath, returned Blizzard, and grabbed her third pokeball. "Vrinda!" she called as she threw the Ultra Ball out onto the arena, revealing a tall, graceful, red-and-gray person. "Force palm!"

The medicham darted forward, nimbly jumping over the rocks towards the evolved fossil pokemon, striking it square in the head. The rampardos roared, striking back with a take down.

They began to dance around each other (or, at least, Vrinda danced around the rampardos), taking and receiving blows equally. Priscilla sucked in her breath when Vrinda finally went down first, though the rampardos didn't seem to be doing so well.

"Medicham is - yawn - unable to battle. Round goes to Roark's rampardos."

"T-tor!" Priscilla gasped, throwing her first battler back out onto the field. "R-razor leaf!"

Once again, Tor's razor leaf downed the opponent, Roark's dinosaur barely able to stand after Vrinda's beating.

The referee crossed her flags, looking glad to see the battle was over. Priscilla assumed it was because the gym employees were scheduled for their lunch break right after her battle. "Rampardos is unable to battle. The round goes to the challenger's grotle and the challenger has won the match."

---

"Three badges!" Priscilla exclaimed, showing off her Coal Badge to her four pokemon back in her Pokemon Center room. Dawn and her pokemon, save for Prince the empoleon and Dasha the rapidash, had gone off for a stroll around the mountainous town to get some air and take care of a few phone calls. Prince yawned in the corner, holding onto Dasha's Luxury Ball without saying a word.

Tor, on the other hand, kept chattering away in his new grotle-sounding language, sounding much throatier than he had a few weeks before when he'd been a turtwig. The other two evolved pokemon seemed similarly enthusiastic, though Priscilla could only understand her newly evolved medicham.

"_So now what?_" Vrinda asked, sitting cross-legged on Priscilla's bed. "_I'm assuming we'll still be training,_" she added. She and Blizzard seemed to enjoy Dawn's harsh training, though Tor seemed a bit frustrated with it, especially when he trained with Prince and lost.

Priscilla nodded. "Well, yeah, of course. But we gotta do it on Mount Coronet." She grinned, pumping her fists up into the air. "We're gonna get to go up to the top! On the peak! Isn't that cool? We're gonna go up there and get the sunset and save my mom and than everything's gonna be okay again!"

Vrinda shrugged. "_Not exactly sure how that all fits together, but sounds good to me. Plus, Bliz should be good with the snow up there - not sure about Tor and Jet, but I'm sure between Bliz and me and any pokemon you catch up there, we should be fine._"

The pit of Priscilla's stomach dropped. "Wait - there's snow up there?"

Blizzard and Vrinda gave her similar looks. "_Oh, y__ou think? I mean, it's autumn..._"

Priscilla sighed. She didn't want to see any snow for the rest of her life, but Vrinda was right. The seasons were changing, and she'd have to deal with snow again at some point. It happened every year, and it would continue to happen every year.

But that didn't get her down too much. After all, she was ready to go and finally save her mom!

"I'm coming, Zenith!" she called, continuing with her lengthy victory dance.

Jet tried to smile a little as he watched from the top of the bed frame, resting his tired wings. Unlike his stronger, evolved teammates, his appendages hadn't gone through any sort of major bulking-up, so he didn't have much of an increased stamina like the others.

But there was one thing he had that none of the others did - except Tor, but he couldn't tell, because Tor had gone through a slight personality change upon evolution and was still sorting himself out. He had a sense of impending doom that he just couldn't shake.

He looked out the window, seeing the painted rocks of the coal town turn golden in the sunset. Priscilla seemed so sure of herself now, so sure of getting the sunset for this "Zenith" guy...

She seemed pretty sure it would work. Jet didn't think the rest of her team doubted her, either.

Then why did he feel that her plan of scaling Mount Coronet wasn't going to work?

---

"NANIMO!" Lisa yelled as she stormed into the cave.

Heat stood next to her, growling and ready to shoot out an eruption attack or rip apart his foe with shadow claw. His claws were sharp and dark. He knew Nanimo. He knew she'd go down easily to a ghost-type attack. "_Where is she?_" he growled, not doubting Lisa's hunch that she'd be here. "_That little bitch better be here._"

Behind them, the other five of Lisa's pokemon trailed uncertainly, showing various levels of understanding. The other two that Lisa had brought from Johto, her venomoth and pidgeot, remembered Lisa mention a "Nanimo" a few times, but they'd thought she'd actually been talking about nothing.

Lisa's three Sinnoh pokemon, the shinx, glameow, and kricketune, just looked confused. "_Any ideas?_" Tora asked lazily, but neither of the other Sinnoh natives had any.

"Nanimo, where _are_ you?" Lisa growled. "I know you're in here!"

Silence.

"NANIMO!"

When the caves suddenly dropped in temperature, only Lisa and Heat didn't look surprised.

"_Well, well, well,_" an androgynous voice drawled from the darkness. "_We meet again._"

---

Author's Note: _Pride and Prejudice_ is in there because of Darcy, and I figure that they could have had some similar things to our world - like literature. Obviously, their Jane Austin would have been different from ours, but I dunno...oh, and there are a couple slight spoilers in this for my other story,Summer Heat, which is the prequel to Poltergeist's.


	24. Sea Star

Chapter 24: Sea Star

"...You can't be serious."

"I'm afraid I am," Professor Rowan said, looking, unfortunately, just as serious as he claimed to be.

Barry just stood there, his mouth hanging open. He didn't speak for a few moments. Then: "But...what's going to _happen_ to everyone?"

The professor shook his head, looking back at the screen. They were standing in a back room in the professor's laboratory in Sandgem Town, looking at the image of a starmie on the computer. "I don't know."

Next to them, Barry's torterra shifted his weight uncomfortably. "_Are we gonna leave?_" he asked slowly.

Barry turned back to him, a scared expression on his face. His blonde hair seemed to be sagging a bit, just as his normally bright and impatient eyes were. "I...don't know." He looked up at the professor. "Are we?"

Professor Rowan didn't answer, he just walked over to the window and looked out towards the west. Just beyond the hills was Lake Verity, the place where Barry took his first step onto the path toward eventually aiding his best friend in saving the world; the place where Professor Rowan finished assembling his team of Pokedex holders. "I won't."

"Then we won't, either," Barry said shakily, exchanging a long look with his torterra, the one who he'd been through everything with. "We're gonna get through this, too. Or else," he smiled weakly, "I'll fine you for ten million."

---

"_I can't believe I'm following you,_" Nanimo snapped as she followed Lisa out of the Solaceon Ruins. "_I told you I didn't want to get caught up in this._"

"You also said that as long as I kept my promise, you'd help me," Lisa replied as she took out a pokeball. Heat had already gone inside his, though he told her before going inside that he didn't want Lisa to be alone with all of this. After all, he _was_ there when Lisa made that promise. "And now I'm going to keep it. So you're going to hold up your end of the deal, too."

She dropped the pokeball, and her pidgeot, Avi, appeared. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the nighttime darkness, and then opened his wings. "_We goin' somewhere?_" he drawled, only acknowledging the floating letter D with a quick glance.

"Yep. Lake Acuity. You remember that place, right?" Lisa asked, taking out a map. "We visited it on the way to Snowpoint City."

"_You kiddin'? I hate that place. Waaay too cold,_" Avi said as he examined the map. "_But I can getcha there no problem._"

"Great, thanks." Lisa put the map away, then took out the black grimoire. "But first, I we need to get this to someone who can read it."

---

Priscilla looked at the map on the table in Oreburgh, a big smile on her face. They were _finally_ planning their trip up to the top of Mount Coronet.

Around the table sat all her pokemon, their expressions ranging from intrigued to mind-numbingly bored to worried.

Unfortunately, Priscilla noticed, the worried one just so happened to be her grotle, Tor.

He kept shifting his weight from side to side, swishing the ferns on his back, and snapping at random noises around the Pokemon Center. Although he didn't seem to have a full-blown panic attack, the nervous gestures didn't make Priscilla feel all that great.

Jet seemed to notice, too, but he looked as if he was trying to ignore it.

Blizzard and Vrinda, on the other hand, knew nothing about Tor's panic attacks (or all the troubles associated with Darcy). That meant that Blizzard kept snuffling excitedly at the prospect of going up to Mount Coronet's snowy peak, while Vrinda just stared at the TV across the room.

"So, um, I guess if we go in from the south, then -"

"Hey, Priscilla?"

Priscilla looked up to see two people standing over her. One, obviously enough, was Dawn, who stood with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face.

The other was a familiar redheaded young man with a typhlosion standing next to him, clutching something in her paws.

"Silver!" Priscilla exclaimed. "A-aren't you supposed to be in -"

"Solaceon Town? Yeah, I am," he said, his face looking just as serious as Dawn's. "There's something we need to talk about."

Priscilla stared at him for a moment, then looked back towards the four pokemon around her table. Her eyes fell on Tor first, who looked like he wanted to throw up. Jet, on the other hand, just looked back at her with an expression that asked: "_why are you so surprised?_"

"Y-yeah? What is it?" she asked, her stomach twisting.

Silver pulled his grey backpack around to his front, taking out a black book with a dusty red gem on the cover. He held it out to Priscilla. "Lisa had this book, but she told me to give it to you. She said it's important."

Priscilla stared at it, squinting at the text on the front. It was all in some language she didn't know, except for one crucial word.

"Grimoire," she whispered, taking it from Silver's hands with her own shaking ones.

"There's something else," Silver added, turning to Assassin, his typhlosion. "Sassy?"

She looked down, hugging the object in her hands. "_Something bad's gonna happen,_" she said in a voice that sounded husky even through Silver's broadcasting translator. "_I know it. And, uh,_" her mouth pulled back into an awkward smile. "_I, um, well...you know..._"

Unwrapping her arms, Priscilla could see that Assassin held a black- and cream-colored egg inside a cylindrical incubator. "Long story short, she and Heat had an egg," Silver explained when Priscilla stared at it for too long with a confused expression on her face.

If Assassin's skin wasn't covered by thick black fur, she would have blushed. "_Yes, we did. And I don't think,"_ she looked uneasily at her trainer, "_I don't think this...place is the right place to keep it. I think something - something's gonna happen, and..._" She hook her head. "_I'm no good at talking about it - it's a stupid feeling, and I hate myself for doing this, but,_" she held out the incubator to Priscilla. "_You need to take it. Please. You need to take it._"

Priscilla took the incubator, which was heavier than she expected, from Assassin with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She turned to look at Dawn. "What's going on?"

Dawn sighed. "Something's happening in Sinnoh. You said you were taken to a dark world with floating red rocks, right?" The younger trainer shuddered. "I'll take that as a yes. That was, most likely, the Distortion World." Dawn took out one of her pokeballs, enlarging it. "Team Galactic wanted to use it to destroy our entire universe and create their own - or, at least, their leader did."

Priscilla felt Jet land on her head. He buzzed out a question, which Dawn seemed to understand.

"Yes - they failed, but I don't think that our efforts really stopped the Distortion World itself." Dawn shook her head, opening the pokeball. A large, blue, bell-shaped metal monster appeared, swinging its arms. "And we're pretty sure that this 'Darcy' of yours has something to do with it."

"So...?" Priscilla asked, looking at Dawn's bronzong uneasily.

"So," Dawn said, putting Priscilla's things in a backpack for her, including the egg and the book. "You're going to have to come with me. Recall your pokemon."

Priscilla quickly pulled her four pokemon back into their respective capsules and tugged on her backpack.

Dawn started muttering orders to her bronzong, and Silver took the time to put a hand on Priscilla's shoulder and lean down to talk to her. "You said you were going to try and find a place where the sunset touched the land, right? Something like that?"

The little girl nodded, trying to remember if she actually did tell Silver and Lisa anything about Zenith's request.

"That's why you're going to Mount Coronet?"

She nodded again.

Silver sighed. "Well, I hope you get a chance to do that. But if you're not able to, you should know - there's a pretty tall mountain range directly west of Cianwood City, one commonly referred to as 'the Sunset Range'."

"Cianwood City?" Priscilla asked, looking at Assassin as if she would know. "Where's that?"

"Johto," said Assassin's trainer.

The younger girl frowned. "Johto? But that's so far away. Why would I need to -"

"Priscilla!" Dawn yelled from across the room. "Get over here! We need to go!"

Before Silver could answer any questions, Dawn had her by the wrist and dragged her towards her bronzong.

"Teleport."

The last Priscilla saw of Silver and Assassin was their similar expressions: sad ones, like they weren't sure if they would see Priscilla again.

---

"So you said that we needed more knowledge, right?" Lisa yelled over the roar of the winds as Avi soared through the night sky towards the north.

"_Right,_" Nanimo called. Lisa had her arm around the unown, clutching the pidgeot with the other. "_I take it that's why you chose Lake Acuity?_"

Lisa nodded. "That's where the 'knowledge pokemon' is supposed to live, and since you said mesprit was a haelliad -"

"_Then uxie's one, too,_" Avi yelled back. "_We get it already! Now shut it so I can fly in peace!_"

Nanimo nodded, keeping close to Lisa. When she looked up at Lisa's determined eyes, she could see red rims.

Red rims that were starting to dribble down her cheeks.

In Nanimo's opinion, it was good Lisa didn't notice. She didn't think Lisa would do nearly as well at keeping up her end of their bargain if she knew she had contracted Poltergeist's Disease.

But then again, why should she be surprised? After all, it _was_ her fault for not creating an important role for herself.

Then again, Nanimo thought, perhaps that was just Lisa's way of doing things. She _had_ surrendered the book to that girl she met - Priscilla somethingorother. Dragging someone _else_ in to help with the dirty work seemed to be a trademark of Lisa Miyamoto's.

She looked to the east, squinting at the horizon. "_We have to get there by sunrise,_" she said.

"What?"

"_We have to get to uxie by sunrise - before, actually._"

"Why?"

"_Because,_" Nanimo said tiredly. "_That's when uxie will be killed. Mesprit and Azelf, too, but they're too far away to be able to do anything about. They're killing the anchors._"

---

"I don't understand," Lyrisa said quietly as she stood before her two companions just outside of Sandgem Town. She had taken the shape of a pregnant woman she saw walking to the store, and was now holding up her enlarged stomach. "You don't _think_ Darcy is dead?"

One of her two companions, a large blue-white dog without fur, save for two long ribbon-like tails that whipped around in the wind, sighed. "I know she got taken back. She's so unstable, she couldn't stay out for long enough. She was getting weak." He spoke with a human voice, one he managed to use through conventional means of talking.

"Why? I thought she was doing fine. Badr," Lyrisa said cooly. "Is there something about Darcy that you wish to tell me?"

The dog, Badr, scoffed. "I'm still ranked ahead of you, Lyrisa. I don't have to tell you anything. But, in regards to Darcy, she _does_ have her own agenda."

Next to him, a small reddish bird without legs hovered in the air, small, sickly will-o-wisps dancing around his wings. "_What about that girl she was traveling with? Wasn't she doing something for Zenith?_" He spoke in a raspy, avian voice devoid of human speech patterns.

Lyrisa nodded. "Darcy said she was, anyway."

"_Did she have the disease_?"

"No..." Lyrisa thought for a moment. "But didn't Darcy say her mother had it? Shouldn't she have it, then?"

"Maybe that was Darcy's goal," Badr suggested. "To use someone who would have contracted it."

"_For what?_" the bird asked. "_None of us know enough about the situation to actually do anything about it. How does she know_?"

"Wystan, she's third, and she spends the most time in the Distortion World of all of us," Lyrisa said, glancing around the town. "Ugh, isn't there another person I can copy? I really don't like being pregnant," she added, though her facial expression didn't seem to be quite as annoyed.

"_Be that as it may,_" Wystan said, flying up. "_The sunrise is coming._"

Lyrisa bit her lip. "Wystan, you don't have to do this..."

The bird chuckled. "_I know, they will probably be killed no matter what I do. But I can cause a diversion for you two to get out. We talked about this, Lyrisa. It's our job, and I'm prepared to do it. If Darcy truly set this girl up to be useful to us somehow, we need to help her. And,_" he added softly, "_this is my role._"

"Celest is helping the girl escape," said Badr, flexing his leg muscles. "Celest is fast over water, and I can easily run all the way to Johto from here. You copy me. If Celest doesn't make it, then we can carry this girl the rest of the way."

Lyrisa sighed, looking up at Wystan. "I'm going to miss you, though."

"_If you're going to miss all of us when we die,_" the bird added as he surrounded his wings with fire, "_you're going to be missing a lot of people when this is over._"

Then he took off towards the north, making an arc of fire in the sky.

"Shall we?" Badr asked, stepping up to Lyrisa.

An instant later, Lyrisa had turned from a pregnant woman to an exact copy of Badr's body. "Let's go."

A second later, they were bounding effortlessly across the water.

---

"Someone was looking for you," Dawn said as she, Priscilla, and her bronzong reappeared near the Pal Park. "Come with me."

Priscilla followed the two through the woods away from the Park, heading towards the coast. When they arrived at a bluff overlooking the ocean, she gasped.

Floating in front of her was a giant starmie, one with the most beautiful red core she'd ever seen. It sparkled in the moonlight, glinting in various colors of the rainbow and making a shimmering light show on the ocean waves below.

"_Hello, Priscilla,_" the star said telepathically, floating closer. "_I don't believe we've met. My name is Celest._"

---

Author's Note: Want to know more about Risa, Nanimo, and where the grimoire was before it passed into Priscilla's hands? Read the prequel, Summer Heat, which is currently about two-thirds complete, and will be completed by the end of August.


	25. Blood Ocean

Chapter 25: Blood Ocean

"_Come with me,_" Celest said, floating closer to Priscilla.

She took a step back, looking at Dawn and her bronzong. "What - what's going on?"

"You said you were looking for someone named 'Celest', that the bookseller told you something about it, right?" Dawn asked. Her full attention didn't seem to be on Priscilla, though - she kept nervously glancing over her shoulder towards the east, where the dawn had already started seeping into the night sky. Next to her, her bronzong kept perfectly still other than a nervous psychic vibration reverberating through its body. Its eyes were on the eastern sky as well. "Well, here's Celest."

Priscilla nodded, turning back to the starmie. "But y-you said I had to go with you."

"_You do._"

"W-why?"

"_Because you're the one with the grimoire now, and you'll be killed if you stay._"

Priscilla blinked. Killed? What? It was as if she didn't quite understand the meaning of the word. It didn't register. "I don't know, I -"

Before she could say anything more, a huge tremor shook the coast, almost throwing Priscilla into the water. "Priscilla!" She looked over to see Dawn releasing the rest of her team and running in the opposite direction. "Go! You need to leave!"

"What's going on?" Priscilla yelled, though she already felt herself edging towards Celest and grabbing one of its spikes. "What's happening?"

Dawn had pulled herself and her empoleon onto her rapidash's back, her bronzong and gliscor taking the air while carrying her glaceon and skuntank. "It's the Distortion World! Go! GO!"

As Celest pulled Priscilla off the shaking coast, she watched as Dawn and her team disappeared back into the brush. Her feet left the ground, and she hung onto Celest as they started flying away over the water.

She saw the sun burst from the eastern horizon, and as it did, all of Sinnoh seemed to catch fire.

"It's...I...what..." Priscilla mumbled, her eyes wide and beginning to tear up. "F-fire..."

"_It's not fire,_" Celest said as they continued to fly away from the burning land. "_It's a cage around the continent. One that prevents anyone from leaving or entering, and one that will contain the beginning of the end._"

"The end...of what?"

"_Everything._"

---

Lisa's party landed on the Lake Acuity island just as the sky erupted in flames. "Are we too late?" she yelled as she dashed into the caves, releasing the rest of her team.

"_I don't know!_" called Nanimo. "_Just find Uxie!_"

Without waiting for an order, both Heat and Lisa's shinx, Lion, lit up the cave with their respective flash attacks. Her kricketune soon followed suit.

"Look for Uxie!" Lisa ordered. As her team split up, she and Nanimo charged into one of the tunnels, Lisa's sneakers slapping against the watery floor of the cave.

But before they found anything, she heard a wailing scream - one that sounded exactly like her glameow, Tora. She turned around just in time to see a wave of fire pour into the cave, one that knocked her down but didn't seem to burn her.

Next to her, Nanimo plastered herself against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. "_It's just as horrible as I thought it would be,_" she moaned.

"Get a grip," Lisa spat, rubbing her eyes. She felt wetness around them, but wiped her hands on her shorts without looking at them. Tears were not something she wanted to acknowledge. "We need to find -"

"_LISAAA!_"

"That - that was Tora!" The young woman stood up, yanked Nanimo off the wall, and began to run back to the main entrance. "Tora! Where are you!"

"_Here! Get here quick!_"

Lisa dashed down another tunnel, stopping when she reached a tall, flooded cavern.

Her glameow stood precariously on a boulder overlooking a shallow pool. In the center, a small grey pokemon with a tan helmet wriggled and shrieked, fighting off some sort of invisible enemy.

Lisa just stood there, unable to move or take her eyes off the strange battle. But every time the pokemon zigzagged a certain way or flicked its two tails or cried out when another cut opened, she felt like she understood a bit more...

Finally, when enough puzzle pieces magically entered her mind, she grabbed Tora off the rock and threw her and Nanimo towards the pokemon. "Faint attack! Hidden power!"

Tora shot forward, slamming into something right next to Uxie, while Nanimo launched a barrage of floating icy spheres of energy into the same thing. Lisa waded around the battle, where the water came up to her waist and Uxie floated almost out of reach, trying to jump up and grab Uxie out of the air.

Just as she felt Uxie's body in her hands, she saw both Tora and Nanimo drop into the water next to her, unconscious.

Then something hit the back of her head, throwing her face-first into the water and pinning her down.

---

"_Do you know how to read the grimoire?_" Celest asked as it and Priscilla continued to zoom away from the Sinnoh region.

Priscilla shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. Celest moved really quickly, and the wind hurt her eyes if she kept them open. Plus, keeping her eyes closed meant she didn't have to worry about seeing her caged homeland. "No."

"_You met Professor Rowan, correct?_"

"N-no, but I met Lucas and -"

"_Let me rephrase. Did anyone give you a Pokedex designed by Professor Rowan?_"

"Y-yeah! That's what Lucas gave -"

"_Do you have it with you?_"

"Yes," Priscilla replied, trying to keep her answers to Celest's questions short. Celest was being sort of rude, cutting her off whenever she tried to say something...

"_Can you take it out? And the grimoire, too?_" Priscilla started to pull out the Pokedex, and Celest added: "_And don't drop either of them. Hold onto them as tightly as you can._"

Trying to grip the sea star with her legs while holding onto her things with her hands, Priscilla asked, "do we have to move this fast? It's hard to hold things - AIIEE!"

"_Please tell me you didn't drop anything just now._"

"I didn't, but you kind of jumped to the right!"

"_Don't drop anything._"

"I won't! I swear, I won't!"

Priscilla swore she heard Celest chuckle. "_Well, I'm glad that you're not crying about Sinnoh anymore, at least._"

The girl stole a quick glance behind her, realizing Celest had effectively distracted her from the trauma of running away from her home. "Um, I guess -"

"_Good. Now, open the grimoire and turn on the Pokedex._"

"...Okay...um, does it matter which page I open the book to?"

"_Is there a page with lists? There should be two lists, each with twelve items. Find that page._"

Priscilla flipped to a page near the end that contained two twelve-item lists, just like Celest had asked for. "I think I got that page. Now what?"

"_Scan it with the Pokedex._"

The little girl pressed the "scan" button, running the contraption over the two pages. The pixelated noise on the screen appeared and stayed for a few moments, then disappeared.

In its place were two lists, plain as day and completely clear.

"The - the lists," Priscilla whispered, her eyes growing wide. Her stomach flip-flopped when she saw a few names that seemed too familiar - she squeezed her eyes shut.

"_Can you read them?_"

"Y-yes, but I - I don't want -"

"_Read them. Read them out loud - and if any of the items on the lists are crossed out, I want you to tell me which ones they are._"

Priscilla gulped and opened her eyes, her hands shaking. She clutched the grimoire to her stomach, careful to keep it from falling into the ocean, and tried to hold onto the Pokedex steadily and tightly.

"U-um, well, th-the title is, um, 'haelliads'," Priscilla read, her mind flashing back to when she was in the hospital, reading the message from "BEATRICE": _"I AM NOT A GHOST. I AM A HAELLIAD."_

"_Go on._"

"One of the lists says 'outsides' at the top. There are twelve items, um, and they are:

"One: Mara. Two: Vael - crossed out. Three: Pentyl. Four: Indira. Five: Nasu. Six: Hallas. Seven: Celest," Priscilla read, flicking her eyes back towards the starmie she was riding.

"_Go on,_" Celest repeated.

Priscilla looked back at the Pokedex screen, taking a deep breath and scrolling down. "Um, eight: Hamako - crossed out. Nine: Umiou - crossed out. Ten: Uxie," she frowned. Uxie? And... "Eleven: Azelf. Twelve...Mesprit." She looked back down at Celest. "I don't get it, why are the -"

"_Read the other list_._"_

"But -"

"_Read the other list. Now._"

Recoiling a bit, Priscilla scrolled down to the other list, the one that, upon first look, made her skin crawl. She took a deep breath and read: "O-one: Zenith." Well, she definitely knew _that_ name. "Two: Nadir. Three..." she winced, "Darcy. Four: Shyama - crossed out."

Her mind instantly flashed back to that moment in Eterna City with the mangled shaymin body. _"I merely made sure nobody would mistake dear little Shyama for someone else," Darcy explained calmly as she floated away from the corpse..._

"Five: Badr," Priscilla added before Celest needed to prompt her on. "Six: Georgiana - crossed out."

Another flashback, when Darcy had been talking to the girl with Priscilla's voice: _"Darcy, Georgiana died. I thought you knew."_

"Seven: Hallam - crossed out. Eight: Farran - crossed out. Nine: Kynaston - crossed out. Ten: Lyrisa," Priscilla remembered Darcy had referred to the girl with Priscilla's voice as "Lyrisa", too, "Eleven: Wystan. Twelve..."

"_Yes?_"

"Twelve is...Beatrice..."

Celest paused for a moment. "_Is Beatrice's name crossed out?_"

Priscilla blinked. "Y-yeah, it is," she said, looking at the name on her Pokedex screen. Just as quite a few others did, her name had a neat line through it.

"_Beatrice is dead? How can that be?"_

"_She was the first to die, Darcy."_

"_MY NAME IS BEATRICE. I AM HERE TO HELP YOU."_

Priscilla shook her head. "I don't get it," she whispered, hugging the book and her Pokedex to herself. "What's going on? Who are these people?"

"'_These people', as you say,_" explained the starmie, "_are a group of entities known as the 'haelliads'. As the lists say, there are two groups of us: insides and outsides. We are the ones created by the Distortion World._"

"What?"

Celest sighed. "_I'm afraid I don't know more than that, and that might not even be true. There are twenty-four of us, and yet all the knowledge we have is split between all of us. In order for any one of us to know exactly why we're here and what we are supposed to do - because there is something we're supposed to do - we'd have to gather information from everyone._"

"Then why don't you just ask each other?"

"_Ah, if it were only that simple. There is, how should I put it? A bit of a power struggle..._" Celest explained, sounding rather melancholy. "_You see how our names are ranked? The higher your number, the more power you have. Zenith and Mara, the primaries of each list, are the most powerful of all of us. If one listed above us dies, we move up a rank and inherit their power, though their knowledge dies with them. So, you see, it is almost in our best interest to make sure someone above us dies._"

Priscilla shivered again. "Almost?"

"_You saw what happened to Sinnoh._"

Now Priscilla felt like crying. "What - what _did_ happen to Sinnoh?"

"_I can't be sure - not yet. But -_" Celest stopped.

"What? What's wrong?"

"_We're being followed._"

Immediately, Priscilla snapped her head back around. She could barely see the Sinnoh continent behind her, its new fiery glow staining the sunrise horizon.

But what she could see were two white dogs bounding across the water towards them at a much faster speed than Celest was flying.

"D-dogs! Wh-what are -"

"_Not them!_" Celest growled. "_They are on our side. I'm talking about..._" Priscilla could have sworn she felt Celest shiver for a moment, then speed up. "_I'm not sure. But it's following us._"

Priscilla grimaced. "_It's coming baaaaaack!_" Darcy said in the back of her mind. She shook her head. Now was _not _the time to think about Darcy...

And yet...

"Celest, why was Darcy number three?" Priscilla asked, tightening her grip around one of Celest's purple spikes.

Celest answered simply enough: "_Because she's third._"

"Yeah...but why?"

"_Shouldn't you be more interested in the two haelliads that are ACTUALLY following us?_" grumbled the starmie. "_You know, the 'dogs', as you put it?_"

Priscilla craned her neck back around to look at the dogs - they were much closer, almost upon them. "Um, okay...who are they?"

"_They are Badr and Lyrisa, fifth and tenth of the insides, respectively._"

Now that they were closer, Priscilla could get a better look at them - for one thing, they were identical in every way. They both stood a bit taller than she did, and although they looked rather emaciated, they seemed to have enough muscle underneath their pale, bare skin to run much faster than Priscilla would have thought possible. There didn't seem to be any sort of distinguishing feature other than two long, ribbon-like blue-white tails that whipped out of their backs, twirling in the air and reminding her of something she couldn't quite place.

"So, um, they're gonna help us?" Priscilla asked.

"_Yes._"

Priscilla watched as Badr and Lyrisa split apart from each other and began to run on either end of Celest, slowing down to match Celest's speed.

"Hello," one of them called in a male, human voice. "Priscilla Vo, I presume?"

"Um, yeah?" Priscilla answered, trying to figure out what the dog reminded her of.

He nodded. "I am Badr. That," he said with a nod of his head towards the other one, "is Lyrisa. We are very pleased to make your acquaintance."

Lyrisa nodded, and Priscilla tried to smile, though the wind blowing against her face made it rather difficult to do so. "Um, okay?"

"I'll create a mist around us, Celest," Badr said, his tails beginning to spin and excrete a white, thick sort of steam. "Should give us a few minutes."

"_Thank you,_" Celest said in a clipped tone.

Priscilla frowned. "A few minutes? For what?"

"_For me to explain a few things before our attacker reaches us._"

"Attacker?" Priscilla gasped. "Wait - wh-what -"

"_For starters, put both the Pokedex and the grimoire back in your backpack. It is essential you do not lose them - ever. Keep them with you at all times. They are very valuable._"

"O-okay," the girl said as she slipped them back into her backpack, careful to keep an iron grip around the straps once they were safely inside. "N-now what?"

Celest chuckled, though somewhat darkly. "_Do you understand what you're going to be doing for awhile?_"

"U-um..."

"_You do know you won't be able to - I mean,_" Celest sighed, "_never mind, you'll find out soon enough. You were originally contacted by Zenith, right?_" Priscilla nodded. Celest must have known she did, because he grunted in response. "_Do you know where he is?_"

"Um, w-well, I think he's behind some sort of waterfall, but -"

She was cut off by a strange metal grating sound, one that made Celest wince and both Badr and Lyrisa stumble. "_It's getting closer,_" the starmie muttered. "_Do you know what to bring Zenith?_"

"Y-yeah, the sunset in a cup, but -"

"_Indira can help you get that,_" Celest said quickly, interrupting her yet again. "_And I'm sure someone can help you find Zenith once you're hidden. Now, Priscilla, I'm going to tell you one of the few things I know - do not interrupt me, please._"

Priscilla opened her mouth to say, "okay", but decided that would be contradicting herself. She closed her mouth and gripped Celest harder, hoping that conveyed her "okay" well enough.

"_The insides are the haelliads born from inside the Distortion World, and the outsides are created from those born outside. Everything born inside is a copy of something powerful on the outside - for example,_" Celest explained, moving a bit to the side to gesture towards Badr, "_Badr is a copy of the legendary Johto pokemon, Suicune. Similarly, Lyrisa,_" he gestured to the left, _"is a copy of Mew, and as such, she has the transform ability, which is how she currently appears as a twin of Badr._"

Priscilla nodded, wincing again when the metal grate sound came back.

"_Everyone outside was chosen because they were already born with a mark on their person, a powerful mark that could hold an immense amount of power. Every single outside haelliad has a red gem on their body, just like the grimoire does on its cover. It is the source of their knowledge and power - and they will try to help you._"

The metal grating sound came back louder and more intensely. Priscilla squeezed her eyes shut, her heartbeat accelerating in fear. What _was_ that sound?

"_I don't have much time. You're going to be taken to people we know we can trust - but you're going to need to be careful about who you trust. Don't tell people your name lightly._"

"M-my name?"

Celest suddenly swerved to the right, narrowly missing a small projectile of some sort. It slammed against the rough ocean water, slipping underwater. Priscilla's throat tightened - it was a bullet.

Badr bounded up to their side, and Priscilla felt herself float off Celest's back and onto Badr's.

"_It was a pleasure meeting you, Priscilla Vo,_" Celest said, beginning to float away, losing its psychic hold on Priscilla's body. "_It is a shame that I couldn't have helped you further and that I won't be around to see just how important you end up becoming._"

With that, Celest turned and fired a psychic blast at a half-invisible figure floating above the water, and Badr suddenly took off into the mist that he'd previously created.

Priscilla hung onto Badr's neck, trying to squint through the fog to see what was happening, though she could clearly hear the bullet shots, psychic bolts tearing through the atmosphere, and shrieks of pain.

A moment later, she saw Lyrisa pad up next to them and extend her tendril-tails to brush against Priscilla's forehead, causing Priscilla to think of her mother, though she didn't know why.

Then Lyrisa began to glow, and a second later, her mother was sitting on Badr's back right behind her, putting her arms around Priscilla's shivering body.

"M-mom?" Priscilla asked, confused and beginning to cry.

"No, no," the Amelia Vo copy whispered in a soothing voice - one that was, in fact, the voice of Priscilla's mother. "I'm sorry, Priscilla - I'm still Lyrisa. I thought you might like it if you could hug your mother instead of watching what's going on behind us."

Priscilla closed her eyes, trying not to cry. Amelia-Lyrisa's arms tightened around her, and Priscilla felt herself calm down, though almost against her will. _She's not my mom, she's not really my mom,_ she thought while simultaneously trying to ignore the faint sounds of Celest screaming in pain and the slight smell of blood hanging in the fog.

"We are all truly sorry, Priscilla," Lyrisa whispered. "We really are."

Celest screamed one last time, and Priscilla thought she heard the sound of a large red gem shattering to pieces. When Lyrisa flinched, Priscilla succumbed to sobs, knowing that the starmie who she'd been riding on just moments before was dead.

"I'm - I'm - sniff - not g-going b-b-back - sniff - am I?" Priscilla blubbered, pushing her face against her "mother's" arm.

"One day, darling," Lyrisa whispered sadly. "One day. Just not soon."

---

Finally, Lisa felt herself get up. Her head hurt like no other, and her vision swam, but at least she was standing.

But once she opened her eyes and took a good look, she wished she was still face-down in the pool.

In front of her lay the slashed-up corpse of what used to be the only live uxie in existence.

Next to it lay another body, though one not quite dead yet, though it bled profusely from its side. It was a bird she wanted to call "Moltres", but knew it would have been a misnomer. The bird looked too small and burned in the wrong places - and had no legs - but...

"_You_," the bird coughed, looking feebly up at Lisa. "_Who - cough - who are you?_"

"L-Lisa," the young woman replied. "Lisa Miyamoto. D-do you need -"

The bird gestured with its beak over to Uxie. "_Take the gem off its head,_" it said slowly. "_Please._"

"But - but that's desecrating -"

"_Do it. Please. You - you need to,_" the bird wheezed, putting its head back down. "_For - for Beatrice...and everyone else..._"

Lisa stood over the dead Uxie, her memory racing back to a time when she was twelve years old...that one time...

"Beatrice?" she whispered, kneeling down next to Uxie.

But when she looked over at the Not-Moltres, it was stiff and dead.

She placed a finger on Uxie's forehead gem and pulled. It came off surprisingly easily, though a bubble of blood seemed to burst behind it and explode all over her clothes.

Lisa stood up, her hand shaking as she put the gem in her pocket. Then she dashed towards the mouth of the cave and vomited, watching the blood seep out from around her peripheral vision and feeling the sensation of someone scratching underneath her skin.

When she looked up, she wanted to vomit again.

The sky had turned red.

"I'm not leaving," she whispered. "I'm going to die..."

Thank whatever god the Sinnohans believed in that Nanimo wasn't in earshot to tell her: "_I told you so._"

---

Author's Note (kinda long - sorry): This is the final chapter of Arc 2: The Grimoire. The next chapter will start Arc 3: The Sunset.

Lisa's narrative wasn't happening in real time compared to Priscilla's - she wasn't underwater for more than a few seconds. Also, here are the lists if you'd like to see them more easily than in Priscilla's dialogue with Celest, along with all the information about the haelliads that has been released in this Poltergeist's:

(Crossed-out names are italicized and underlined, since I can't figure out how to put strikethroughs in for this site.)

Outsides: (normal pokemon with a red gem on their body)

1. Mara  
2. _Vael_  
3. Pentyl  
4. Indira  
5. Nasu  
6. Hallas  
7. _Celest_ (starmie) (killed after Priscilla checked)  
8. _Hamako_  
9. _Umiou_  
10. _Uxie_ (Uxie) (killed after Priscilla checked)  
11. Azelf (Azelf)  
12. Mesprit (Mesprit)

Insides: (mutated copies of legendary pokemon)

1. Zenith  
2. Nadir  
3. Darcy (Giratina)  
4. _Shyama_ (Shaymin)  
5. Badr (Suicune)  
6. _Georgiana_  
7. _Hallam_  
8. _Farran_  
9. _Kynaston_  
10. Lyrisa (Mew)  
11. _Wystan_ (Moltres) (killed after Priscilla checked)  
12. _Beatrice_


	26. Johto Champion

Arc III: "The Sunset"

Chapter 26: Johto Champion

"_Well, well, well," the creature said with a too-wide grin. "You're doing rather impressively, sweetie."_

_Priscilla felt her throat tighten. Where was she? She couldn't see - except for the creature. How -_

"_Don't bother. I've masked your vision. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, do we, Pris-ci-lla?"_

_Hands went around her neck, fingernails scratching at her throat._

"_I really am put out about what happened the other day, sweetie. You know, it is rather disappointing to see such a sweet girl act so violently."_

_Priscilla opened her mouth to speak, but no air came out. The hands around her throat were too tight - she couldn't talk. She could barely breathe._

"_But you're still managing so well," Darcy said, smiling and leaning in close. Close enough that Priscilla could feel her breath on her face - since when did ghosts have breath? - but not close enough for her to see her face clearly. No distinguishing features... "Aren't you, sweeeeeeeeeeetie?"_

_Then her hands squeezed._

---

"G-g-gg-gaaaAAAAAH!"

Priscilla sat up, her hands scrabbling around her neck, trying to rip off the invisible fingers. But there were none - she was safe.

Or, rather, as safe as she could be while on the back of a white dog running over water. She looked up to see her "mother" - or, at least, a haelliad pretending to be her mother - looking down at her, still holding Priscilla in a warm embrace.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Lyrisa asked with her mother's voice.

Priscilla nodded, leaning against Lyrisa and pretending she really _was_ her mother.

"Did it involve anyone you know?"

The little girl thought for a moment - she'd been stupid before, but Celest _had _said not to trust everyone, and there was no way Lyrisa wasn't asking a loaded question.

"No," Priscilla answered, shivering. She didn't want to talk about Darcy, anyway - and hadn't Lyrisa and Darcy been on the same side? They'd been talking that one night back in Sinnoh, where Lyrisa must have transformed into a copy of Priscilla herself... "Nobody I know..."

"Ah. I see."

---

"We'll be leaving you soon, Priscilla," Badr said finally, over an hour since they had hit land. They were currently running through a thick forest, dashing around impossibly tall evergreens and running across frigid lakes. "Lyrisa and I will create a diversion and lead anything following us away from you."

Priscilla felt her "mother's" arms tighten around her. "Don't worry, Priscilla. There's going to be a friend to pick you up. You'll be safe with her."

"Um, who -"

"Mariko Amaiwa," Lyrisa said. "Though she fights under the name 'Crystal'. She'll be taking over as Champion of Johto in...what was it?"

"A year or two," Badr replied as he jumped over a fallen tree.

"Ah, right."

Priscilla gaped. _Another_ champion? "Why -"

"Because she's got a lot of political leverage," Lyrisa answered, turning her head to look behind them. "Badr, they're getting closer."

"Right. Priscilla, we're going to throw up another mist cover, and I want you to hide in a tree."

"In...a tree?"

"Yes. We'll help you hide, but then Lyrisa will transform into a copy of you, and, if all goes as planned, she and I will be followed instead of you. By then, Crystal will have found you, and you'll be safe with her. We're near the rendezvous point, anyway, so I don't expect any trouble," Badr said as a thick fog began to billow from his body.

He stopped at a thick tree, and Priscilla clambered onto a concealed branch with the help of Lyrisa, who changed from her mother to a mirror version of her as she did.

"I'm pretty convincing, huh?" Lyrisa said, once again using Priscilla's voice, but with a confidence Priscilla never thought she'd have.

But Priscilla tried to smile and nod, clutching her bag to her chest. "Um, so -"

"You just wait here. Don't worry - just be quiet, and you'll be fine."

And with that, the "other Priscilla" wrapped her arms around Badr's neck, and they were off, bounding through the forest.

Priscilla could have sworn she saw some dark shape shoot after them a few minutes later, but the fog _was_ very thick, so she couldn't be sure.

Instead, she just tightened her hold on her bag, and waited.

---

It seemed like hours later when she finally heard it: a woman's voice.

"Hello?"

Priscilla's ears perked up, and she tried to move some of the pine needles around her face so she could see the woman. She heard two people moving through the underbrush, but didn't see anything until -

"Ledi?"

Priscilla screamed, swiping behind her and thrashing wildly as the flying creature ducked out of the way.

"Hold on," the woman's voice said, sounding closer. "You're in that tree. Oh - Kiss, get her down, will you?"

Suddenly, Priscilla found that her limbs wouldn't move. She stopped flailing around and saw that the branch she was previously sitting on now hung much lower than her feet -

Then Priscilla looked down and saw a strange person with dark skin, white hair, and a weird purple dress holding her hands up towards her, and she realized the person - or, more likely, the pokemon - was lifting her psychically.

And next to her stood a somewhat familiar young woman, one somewhere around Dawn's age and, by the look of the insignia on her jacket, also with Dawn's rank. She had bright eyes and dark hair in - were those _pigtails?_ Yes, yes, they were. Champion Crystal, though in her twenties, still put her hair in pigtails.

Crystal's pokemon set Priscilla gently down on the forest floor, though Priscilla lost her footing and stumbled, anyway. "Hey, sorry," Crystal said with a smile, putting her hand on Priscilla's shoulder to steady her. "Sometimes telekinesis can be kinda rough."

Priscilla blinked blearily up at Crystal, trying to steady herself. Unfortunately, the days' events had turned her stomach into a bottomless pit of nausea and her head into a spinning-top, or so it felt when she tried to stand up straight. "Y-yeah..."

The champion chuckled a bit as her flying bug landed on her shoulder and the person-pokemon walked over. "Well, I hope this next bit won't be, you know, just as bad - or worse. We're going to teleport. You ready?"

"Tele - AAAAGHH!"

And then, just like that, the ground dropped out of Priscilla's world and she landed somewhere else entirely.

---

Luckily, her new location didn't seem to be any sort of distorted, dark, evil world with a twisted Giratina-monster-Darcy out to get her.

In fact, Crystal brought her to a small garden outside a townhouse in a mountainous small city. The house looked fairly small, squished up inside a row of similar-looking houses, and had a black rooftop. _All_ the houses, it seemed, had black rooftops.

"Welcome to Blackthorn City," Crystal said as she whipped out a key and went about opening the door. "This is my house. You like? Oh! Come on in!"

Priscilla felt her jaw drop open as she followed Crystal into a cramped-but-charmingly-so little house, filled with staircases up through its three stories and tiny little rooms. The walls were a cheerful yellow-orange and the floors were hardwood in the hallways and landings and soft bamboo mats in the main rooms.

"Please take off your shoes - you're probably hungry, so I can get some breakfast..."

Crystal lead Priscilla (once her shoes were off, of course) into a teeny little bamboo-floored room adjacent to the equally small kitchen. The Sinnohan girl flopped down on one of the cushions around the low table, trying to sit as Crystal's person-pokemon did with her legs folded and tucked in. However, she soon realized that this position was hard to balance in and extremely uncomfortable, so she slid her legs to the side and hoped this didn't brand her as a stupid foreigner for life - especially since this was, in fact, her first time out of the country.

_So this is Johto,_ she thought as she looked around the room, trying to avoid eye contact with Crystal's strange pokemon (the flying red-and-black bug had followed Crystal into the kitchen) and trying not to think about the current state of her homeland. _I guess it's not too bad._

Then again, it wasn't exactly _Sinnoh_, which was where she actually _wanted_ to be. And what Celest had been about to tell her before - no, she didn't want to think about that, either. But, she had to admit, Crystal's little house seemed very warm and welcoming, and Priscilla really did appreciate that.

A few moments later, Crystal walked in with a tray filled with ceramic bowl-style teacups and bowls of some sort of stir fry over rice. Crystal placed a cup of tea and a bowl, along with a pair of chopsticks Priscilla had no idea how to use, in front of her before setting her own food (and some for her two released pokemon) down on the table.

"Thanks for the food," she said, her two pokemon chorusing along with her, before digging in.

Priscilla blinked, wondering who Crystal was thanking, then picked up the chopsticks and the bowl of rice-and-who-knew-what and tried to imitate Crystal's method of eating.

(Unfortunately, she got more rice on the table than in her mouth and ended up dropping the chopsticks twice. Fortunately, Crystal noticed this and got her a spoon.)

They didn't talk much (except for Crystal's "would you like me to get you a spoon?"), since Priscilla spent most of her time shoving food into her hungry mouth. After she finished, Crystal lead her out into a small backyard to release her pokemon to eat (and see Johto for the first time).

Priscilla sat on the grass, looking up at the sky while her four pokemon gobbled down Crystal's pokemon food. "D'you think everything's gonna be okay?" she asked, wondering if any of her pokemon would answer.

"Gro," mumbled Tor between mouthfuls.

Tor, always the optimist - or so she assumed, since she didn't actually understand him anymore. Not without -

But she didn't want to think about Darcy, so she didn't finish _that_ thought.

Except, Priscilla found, she couldn't help it. One minute she was staring at Jet nibbling at a pellet, and the next she found herself caught in a daydream she couldn't quite get out of.

"_You wretched little girl," said the woman with a thin smile, her eyes dark and bottomless. "How dare you come upon my mansion so late at night?"_

_The espeon at her feet stared up at Priscilla with cold eyes and a glittering red jewel. She said nothing, not even through telepathy, but Priscilla could feel a sort of deep rooted malicious intent emanating out from her. She shuffled away from the espeon nervously, trying not to keep eye contact - or, even worse, look at the red gem on her forehead._

"_Now," the lady said, placing her forefinger under Priscilla's chin and wrenching it up. "I do hope you'll stay the night, little girl, because otherwise I shall be very angry. Very angry, indeed."_

"_Y-yeah," Priscilla said in a voice that didn't sound too much like her own - deeper, maybe. A slightly different tone. Next to her, a grey-and-black pokemon she didn't recognize grunted and looked up at her, a worried look in his eyes. "D-don't worry, Steel," she told the pokemon, "spending a night here won't be so bad."_

_It was clear that the grey-and-black pokemon, Steel, didn't agree. But he said nothing - he just shuffled closer._

"_So then," the lady said softly, leaning down to look Priscilla directly in her eyes, close enough that Priscilla couldn't look away. "You'll tell me all about your travels, won't you?" Her dark eyes glittered, and Priscilla suddenly realized she found a woman she feared MORE than Darcy - although the espeon at her feet seemed like a possible contender for that, too. "And I do mean everything. To make up for trespassing, of course."_

"_Of course," Priscilla repeated, putting a hand on Steel's cool outer shell for support. "Of course."_

"_Good. Now, what did you say your name was?"_

"_It's -"_

"Priscilla!"

Priscilla jolted out of her reverie, shivering and standing up with a start. "Wh-what?" she called, looking around for Crystal - because it had been Crystal who said "Priscilla", not Priscilla herself.

Although - and this seemed even stranger - Priscilla hadn't been sure if she would have said that. Or, at least, that she didn't _want_ to tell the woman her name was Priscilla.

And who was Steel, anyway? She didn't have any pokemon named that - nor did she even recognize the _species_ of pokemon he was. But he seemed fairly familiar, like a friend that, while not her _best_ friend, still stood by her and traveled with her.

Sort of like...Blizzard. He wasn't Jet (who _had_ to be her best friend, since, after all, he was her starter), but he was a good, loyal, fun-to-be-with friend.

"Priscilla?" Crystal said as she poked her head out the back door. "Are your pokemon all done?"

A quick glance back at the four pokemon she owned confirmed that yes, they were done with their food.

"Great. Come inside - my friend's here. He's gonna be the other one who'll be helping you. Don't worry," she added with a smile as Priscilla walked in, flanked by her four Sinnohan pokemon, "his pokemon are all kinda weird, but they're all really nice."

She led Priscilla back into the cramped dining room, where Priscilla had to recall all but Jet, since he was the only one who didn't take up too much room (and that was only when he sat on her head). Inside she found Crystal's black-and-red flying bug and along with a man and a strange, weasel-type pokemon she didn't recognize.

"Hello," the young man said with a smile as Priscilla sat down. "You're Priscilla, right?"

"Uh-huh," she replied.

The weasel, who draped herself lazily around the man's neck, blinked slowly as she stared at Priscilla. Priscilla decided she liked the weasel-thing, because she had a cute expression on her face. Nothing that cute could be evil.

"Nice to meet you," the man replied. "My name's Ichiro Tanimura, and this is Kansai, my furret. So I hear you now have Risa's book."

"Risa?" Priscilla asked, confused. She didn't know anybody named Risa.

"Risa Miyamoto?" Ichiro asked, frowning. "You know, blonde hair, has a typhlosion named Heat attached to her hip -"

"Oh, you mean Lisa! Yeah, I have her book...um, but Silver gave it to me."

"Silver?" Ichiro asked, turning to Crystal with a confused expression on his face.

Crystal shrugged. "I guess that's Gin's English name. You know, the one he's using in Sinnoh to sound more local? Like 'Lisa' instead of 'Risa'."

"Oh, right, right." Kansai, the weasel-thing apparently referred to as a "furret", swatted lazily at his fingers as he waved them in front of her. "Anyway," he said, looking back at Priscilla. "I also hear you're looking for a sunset."

Priscilla nodded slowly, feeling Jet twitch against her scalp when she did.

Ichiro grinned. "Lucky for you, I know someone who can get you one. And I know just the place to go."

---

A/N: Ichiro, Crystal, and all their pokemon are from Summer Heat (which I am currently about 2/3 of the way through writing). Oh, and I want to know - any guesses to what kind of pokemon Steel is? Tell me in a review! I want to see how many people get it right. :)


	27. Mountain 3 04

Chapter 27: Mountain 3-04

"So where are we going?" Priscilla yelled over the roar of the wind. Her arms were around Ichiro's waist and her face buried in his back, because she did _not _want to look down and see the Johto landscape hundreds of feet below.

"Cianwood City," he yelled back, keeping his eyes ahead of where his large owl was flying. Priscilla learned that the owl was called a "noctowl", and it was the final evolution of a sort of nocturnal, two-stage, Johto equivalent of the starly line. The one they were riding on was named Kazeko, and she was the second pokemon Ichiro caught.

They kept gliding, and Priscilla adjusted her arms. "How long 'till we get there?"

"...Awhile!"

"...Okay..."

---

"Awhile" turned out to be over an hour, and by that time, the magic of flying had long worn off for Priscilla. By the time Kazeko landed and she and Ichiro dismounted, she was more than happy to stand on something stationary.

Plus, Cianwood City - which wasn't a large city at all, unlike every single city in Sinnoh, and therefore, Priscilla didn't think it deserved to be Cianwood _City_ at all - was such a lovely place. The houses and buildings seemed to melt right into the huge beach on one end and fit snugly up against towering, picturesque mountains on the other.

Mountains that got really tall really quickly...

"That one's really tall!" Priscilla said, pointing to a peak on a latitude near the center of town. "It looks like..."

"Like it could touch the sunset?" Ichiro finished, grinning madly. "That's Mountain 3-04 of the Cianwood Range, but colloquially, it's known more as Sunset Mountain."

Priscilla's stared numbly at the mountain ahead. "Really?"

"Really. Nobody really goes there, since the mountains don't have anything of interest to most people - just some mountain climbing areas near the coast. But Crystal and I _did_ run across a rather interesting - ow! What?"

Kazeko had jabbed his shoulder with her beak. She glared up at him. "_You didn't do anything,_" she said, her voice translated through a small machine that Ichiro wore on a cord around his neck. "_Crystal was the one who met her._"

"Yeah, but I...you know...took part. From...a distance."

"_You were in Ecruteak when they met. You said you never wanted to set foot on those mountains._"

"Kazeko, you are sorely mistaken. I merely said that I never wanted to...live...on the mountains. I could definitely climb them."

"_Liar._"

"Um...well...hey! So, let's go get your shopping done!" Ichiro finally said, zapping Kazeko back into her pokeball, grabbing Priscilla's hand, and dragging her to a nearby mountaineering store. "This place should have what you need!"

Priscilla frowned. Once they were in, she saw tents and rock climbing harnesses and carabiner clips and a whole slew of gear she couldn't identify. "Um, I don't know how to rock climb..."

"You don't need to - you said you had a medicham, right?" Ichiro said as he lead her to the counter.

"Yeah, but -"

"That's all you need for the rock climbing part of it - and I'm sure you have camping gear already."

"Well, yeah -"

"Great!" Ichiro said enthusiastically before turning to the man at the counter. "Hey, where's the dishware?"

The man, middle-aged and with a scruffy beard, jabbed a thick finger towards one of the aisle. "Over there."

"Great! C'mon."

Once again, Priscilla felt Ichiro tug her over to an aisle full of camping dishes. "I already have this stuff," Priscilla said as she inspected some stainless steel plates.

Ichiro, on the other hand, was looking at the sealed travel mugs. "But your dream-talking guy said you needed to get the sunset into a cup, right?"

"Yeah..."

He held up a travel mug triumphantly. "Well, how 'bout this as your cup? It has a sealing lid, so once you get the sunset in, it won't spill out."

Priscilla blinked. She hadn't exactly thought of that; she knew she had to get the sunset, but the part of actually bringing a cup with a lid didn't really cross her mind. "Um, that....that makes sense."

"Great. Let's buy it."

---

The next day, Priscilla and Vrinda found themselves on a tram car going to the top of Mountain 02, one of the smaller, coastal mountains that had some minor hiking trails at the top.

The previous night, Ichiro gave her a hidden machine he got from Crystal (who got it from someone else via her contacts as League Champion), one that contained the attack rock climb. He helped her teach it to Vrinda, who picked it up fairly fast.

But he wasn't there with them when they went up the tram.

"_Yeah, so you're going to see Indira, right?" he'd asked that morning as he dropped them off at the tram station._

_Priscilla nodded. "Uh-huh."_

"_She's really picky about things. Apparently, she told Crystal - or, at least, told Crystal's jynx through telepathy - that she only wanted you to go up the mountain to see her. Only you and your team. Crystal and I aren't allowed to accompany you, and we're not allowed to give you any of our pokemon." He sighed. "It sucks, because I was going to give you two of my stronger pokemon, you know, just in case they'd help. But we don't really want Indira angry, you know?"_

_Priscilla nodded again, exchanging a nervous look with her medicham. "Um, I guess so."_

"_Great." Ichiro clapped a hand on Priscilla's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Good luck, kid. You'll be fine. Just don't lose your head." He chuckled. "I actually kind of mean that - the air's thinner up there, so don't get altitude sickness."_

_The younger girl gulped. "O-okay."_

"Welcome to the top of Mountain 02!" the announcer said cheerfully over the intercom. "Thank you for riding with us."

Priscilla and Vrinda stood as the rest of the passengers began to leave the tram, and they went with the crowd. Once they stepped off the tram into the crisp autumn air, Priscilla pulled on a blue jacket and took out the paper map Ichiro gave her.

She and Vrinda stepped away from the hubbub around the small nature center and tram station, and examined the map. "So, um, if we take this trail," Priscilla said as she pointed to one of the snaking lines on the map, "it'll take us to this tunnel entrance," she pointed to a thicker line to the east, "which'll take us to the side of Mountain 3-04. Then we just have to...y'know...go up the mountain."

"_He said this 'Indira' person was gonna meet us at the other mouth of the tunnel, right?_" Vrinda asked, stretching her arms.

Priscilla nodded. "Yeah. Um, I guess we should go."

Vrinda grinned as they started walking down one of the trails. "_No use putting off the inevitable._"

---

"Pilooo," whined the snuffly piloswine. "Piiiiiiiloooooo."

Vrinda glanced over at Priscilla. "_He says he's bored. Like...you know...aren't there wild pokemon on these mountains?_"

Priscilla frowned. "Um, I don't know. I just figured that if I let you guys out, then...I dunno...if something happened, you could take care of it."

The medicham sighed. "_Is anything going to happen? We haven't even reached the tunnel yet. We've been on this stupid trail for hours._"

Her two friends from the blizzard flanked Priscilla as they continued down the trail, picking their way around boulders and edging along sloping drop-offs. The trail was fairly wide, but not wide enough for everyone to be out at once - Priscilla decided to rotate her pokemon, only having two out at each time. At the current moment, Blizzard and Vrinda were her companions.

Bliz yawned, mumbling something else which Vrinda reluctantly translated as, "_how close are we to the tunnel?_"

"Um, probably - um, I dunno, ten minutes?" Priscilla said hopefully, though in reality, she had no idea.

Vrinda groaned. "_You know, this sounded a lot more interesting when -_"

They turned a corner around a rocky cliff, and Vrinda stopped talking.

Priscilla's ten minute estimate had been about ten minutes off - in front of them loomed a giant, snaking tunnel mouth gaping wide open in the middle of a natural rock wall.

"_Well, that was...fast._"

"Y-yeah..."

Bliz mumbled a few more things.

"_He wants to know if we should go inside,_" Vrinda said off-handedly, edging towards the mouth. "_It definitely looks way more exciting than anything we've seen on this dumb trail._"

Priscilla took a deep breath and stepped forward. "Um, l-let's go, then."

And they did.

---

Later, Priscilla switched out Bliz for Jet, seeing as he could half fire up his signal beam attack and create a slight light source. He buzzed a bit above and ahead of her, trailing behind the medicham who didn't seem at all daunted by the darkness.

Jet, on the other hand, couldn't help but remember the last time they had gone in any sort of dark tunnel - excluding the Oreburgh Gate, of course. But that hadn't exactly counted - it was so frequently traveled, Oreburgh City had even put up lights along the main tunnel. That, and sunlight seemed to make its way into most of the cavern, anyway.

But the tunnels in Mount Coronet still slithered through his mind, reminding him of the last time he saw _her._

The evil ghost.

_Darcy._

Jet narrowed his eyes, recalling how the ghost had asked Priscilla to zap him back into his safari ball and put him away. He remembered waiting around, though he didn't exactly know for how long, and then somebody let him and Tor out.

That "somebody" had been Barry, who promptly went about explaining how a few days had gone past since anybody had gotten a signal from Priscilla's Pokedex.

After not too much convincing, as Tor knew Barry and trusted him completely, seeing as he was a cousin of Barry's own torterra, Barry took temporary custody of Jet and Tor and brought them back to civilization. They stayed at Sandgem Town for almost three months, only leaving for quick trips around Sinnoh until they detected a signal from Priscilla's Pokedex again.

Then they went to Jubilife, where Priscilla was being transferred to the hospital from an emergency room in Celestic Town after _being caught in a blizzard._

Jet thought it was a miracle that Priscilla survived, and even more of a miracle that when she released her pokemon, he didn't see a misdreavus among them (though the swinub and meditite were a bit of a surprise).

He snapped out of his reverie when Vrinda finally brought up the obvious: "_where are all the pokemon?_"

Priscilla shrugged. Now that they had gone for hours without seeing much of any wild pokemon - with the exception of a few flocks of birds flying overhead back out on the trails, back when Priscilla had Tor and Blizzard out. None of them knew what the birds were, though. Now that Priscilla had no reason to be afraid of anything, she didn't seem to stutter as much. Jet welcomed the change.

They continued on for a few more minutes in silence until Jet sensed a bit of sunlight. He buzzed his findings over to Vrinda, who begrudgingly translated them to Priscilla.

Only a few moments later did they hear the soft pitter-patter of padded feet coming closer.

The three froze, save for Priscilla, who began to reach for the capsules containing Blizzard and Tor.

"_There is no need to fight me,_" a scratchy female voice said in clear, translated pokemon speech. "_I believe we are on the same side._"

Jet slipped down, flying over to where the large pokemon stood. Once he drew closer, the light from his charging signal beam cast a slight glow on the mammal's body, reflecting off the pokemon's brilliant red forehead jewel.

The pokemon was a large, eggshell white cat that stood almost as tall as Priscilla, with thick whiskers, red eyes, black-tipped ears, a long whiptail, and sharp teeth and claws.

She sneered, showing off her long canines. "_I assume you are currently in possession of the grimoire?_"

Priscilla stared at the cat's red gem. "Y-yes," she said quietly, hoping the cat was truly trustworthy. But she _did_ have a red gem on her forehead, and Celest _did_ say that the outside haelliads had red gems. Surely she could trust a haelliad - and Ichiro said she would meet someone who would help her.

But she still couldn't shake a queasy feeling out of her stomach.

The cat nodded. "_I see. My name is Indira,_" she said, stepping forward. "_I am currently third of the outsides, after the death of Vael. I understand that I am to help you fulfill a promise to Zenith._"

"Y-yes. I, um, need to - to get the sunset. In a cup."

Indira sniffed. "_Yes, I understand. Very well - follow me._"

Jet and Vrinda exchanged a worried glance as they followed the cat to the edge of the tunnel and out into the afternoon light.

Priscilla gasped - in front of them stood a scraggly mountain, its peak obscured by a thick layer of fog. "That's -"

"_That is Mountain 3-04, as those in the city call it. Or,_" Indira added with a glint in her eyes, "_Sunset Mountain. Recall your yanma and follow me. I assume your medicham will carry you to the top?_"

Priscilla gulped and looked at Vrinda. The medicham's shocked expression at the sight of the mountain had long wore off, and she looked excited to exert any sort of physical energy. "_'Bout time something happened around here,_" she said with a grin.

Her trainer sighed and recalled Jet without so much as a glance his way. Adjusting the backpack on her back, she stepped over to walk alongside Vrinda as they followed their haelliad guide to the edge of the mountainside.

Indira, for all her lack of opposable thumbs, seemed to have no problems with Mountain 3-04. She merely began to lightly jump up each rocky outcropping, no matter how small, making her way up. Once she stood about ten meters above Priscilla and Vrinda, she peered down. "_Follow me, please,_" she ordered.

Biting back her slight fear of heights, Priscilla wrapped her arms around Vrinda's neck and Vrinda stood up, allowing Priscilla to wrap her legs around Vrinda's middle. Once she had a secure position on the psychic's back, Vrinda put her hands on the mountain and took a deep breath.

"Rock climb," Priscilla whispered.

Vrinda kicked against the ground to give herself a boost up, and they were off, following Indira to the top of Sunset Mountain.

---

A/N: Not much to say, but I have a question - at this point in the story, who is your favorite pokemon on Priscilla's team? Least favorite? This is excluding Darcy, but if Darcy would have been your favorite/least favorite, say so.


	28. The Sunset

Chapter 28: The Sunset

"_Oh, will you quit screaming?_"

Priscilla merely whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut and trying very hard not to look down. While Vrinda had yet to fall on their steep ascent up Mountain 3-04, she did stumble more than once, sending a small cascade of pebbles and stones down into nothingness.

They had reached the bottom of the misty layer near the top of the mountain, which sort of helped Priscilla's fear of heights. It did not, however, keep her from screaming every time Vrinda's handhold crumbled under their combined weight.

When they finally reached their stopping point, a level area the size of Crystal's house's first floor, Priscilla dissolved into a blubbering mess of sobbing ten-year-old.

Vrinda stood over her, shaking her head. "_Oh come on, it wasn't that bad._" She glanced over at Indira to see what the cat-haelliad had to say about the whimpering girl, but Indira just sat there, perfectly composed and silent. The medicham groaned again. "_Seriously, Priscilla. Shut uuuuup. Your whining is giving me a headache._"

Priscilla's only response was to throw a pebble at Vrinda. (She missed by a long shot, so the rock climber decided not to take any sort of retaliatory action.)

After Priscilla stopped crying, Indira glanced up towards the sky. The sun hung low in the west, signaling that it would be about an hour and a half until sunset. "_We are going to wait for a little bit,_" the cat said, "_until the sun begins to set. Then you will need to do what you came here to do._"

Priscilla sniffed. "What?"

"_When the sun reaches a low enough point, the light will refract through the mist in such a way that you will see the stairs next to me,_" Indira explained, tilting her head to her left in a gesture. Priscilla blinked. There was nothing next to Indira.

"But -"

"_There are stairs next to me, you just cannot see them. When the sun is low enough that it begins to set, the light will refract in such a way that you will be able to see and interact with them,_" Indira repeated, sounding a bit bored. "_Once you see the stairs, you are to go up them. When you reach the top - and you will know when you reach it - you need to follow Zenith's instructions._"

Priscilla blinked a couple times, trying to remember if Zenith had ever given her instructions. If he had, she had long forgotten them - save for the whole "get Zenith the sunset in a cup" part. "Um, I don't know if - if I remember -"

"_You will remember._" Indira yawned and curled up. "_Now you just have to wait._"

The little girl sighed, looking over at Vrinda. The medicham shrugged. "_Don't look at me. I'm just here to fight things and get you up mountainsides and stuff._"

"Okay," Priscilla said, mostly to herself, "now we just have to wait a little bit."

---

Half an hour later, Priscilla was already bored. Vrinda had asked to go back inside her ultra ball, so Priscilla only had a sleeping Indira to keep her company. None of her other pokemon really liked being out of their pokeballs, since Bliz and Tor found the top of the mountain to be dizzying and constricting, and Jet hated the thin air.

When Indira didn't seem to want to wake up, Priscilla found herself digging through her bag to try and find any sort of thing to keep her occupied.

She pulled out her Pokedex and the grimoire, but the sight of both of them made her feel uneasy, so she quickly put them back in her bag. Just as she did, she realized there was another item that wasn't in an item capsule - another book.

Frowning and trying to remember where she got the other book, she pulled it out. But when she saw the title, "The Southern Seas", she immediately remembered; back when she met the bookseller in Celestic Town, the one with the xatu that was supposed to already be dead. (Though after meeting Lyrisa, the shapeshifting mew-haelliad, the concept of an impostor xatu didn't bother her quite as much.)

Flipping the book open, she began to skim the pages, looking for something that would hold her attention.

She found it - a huge, two-page map of the eastern sea routes of the Hoenn region. It was a gorgeous map in an old style, one with sea monsters she assumed to be various Hoenn-native pokemon dotting the waves. "Sootopolis City," she whispered as she squinted down at the map. "It's - it's in a volcano! And - and Pacifidlog Town - it can't really float on water, can it? Mossdeep City, Lilycove City, Everg -"

Her throat tightened before she could finish saying the name of the city, because on the southern edge of the little drawn island was a huge, blue-and-white waterfall.

Suddenly Priscilla's head swooned and a wave of vertigo overtook her, and she found herself staring at one of the largest waterfalls she'd ever seen, one that tumbled down from the top of a rocky island down to the ocean below. Behind her she could smell the sea breeze and hear the calls of the wheeling wingulls above, and in front of her she could see the shape of a hunched-over man she knew to be Zenith.

But the feeling only lasted for a moment. Priscilla shook her head, regaining her sense of place.

She then flipped the next few pages, getting away from the map. Instead, she busied herself reading about trainers' accounts of a gigantic tentacruel, and the various adventures of people trying to dive into the deep seas of Hoenn to find ancient rockfish pokemon.

---

"_It is time._"

Priscilla looked up from her book to see Indira standing over her. Behind her, the sun had begun to set, its golden rays piercing the other mountaintops in the Cianwood Range.

The girl's heart tightened. It was here - the sunset that she was going to catch.

"What - what do I -"

She stopped when she glanced over to her right. Next to where Indira had been catnapping stood an ethereal, golden, transparent staircase that winded up to the sky. As each second passed, another step seemed to flicker into existence.

"_Take the cup with you. That will be all you'll need._"

"O-okay." Priscilla put her book down on the rocky ground, then reached into one of the side compartments in her backpack. She pulled out an item ball labeled "travel mug" and took out the formerly digitized cup-with-a-lid. Standing, she held the cup close to her chest. "Now what?"

"_Go up the stairs._"

"Th-then what?"

"_You will see._" Indira walked over to the base of the staircase and stared back at Priscilla. "_I cannot go with you. Only one may go to the top."_

Priscilla took a deep breath, nodded, and walked over to the base of the staircase. "I'm coming, Mom," she whispered to herself as she put her right foot on the first step. When it seemed to stay solid and support her weight, she reached out to put one hand on a higher step, as there was no banister, and began to slowly climb up the winding staircase into the sky.

---

As she climbed higher and higher, the mists around her seemed to set in thicker and thicker. She couldn't see past a few steps up, and she didn't even want to try looking down - though she assumed she would no longer be able to see Indira and the rocky landing below.

The sunlight refracted strangely through the fog, making everything seem golden and reddish. The air around her seemed to be thicker and heavier, which made absolutely no sense - if she was as high up as she thought she was, the air should have been thinner.

Everything around her was seeped in peaceful silence, save for the soft "tap-tap" her feet made against the steps as she continued up towards the sky.

Eventually, she reached the top - a small, gilded platform with a pattern of a setting sun etched into the middle. Panting, Priscilla stumbled over to stand on top of the image, looking around her. She couldn't see anything to her sides, as the mists were closed in too thick. When she got enough courage to peer over the platform, she couldn't see anything below her, either. (Which sort of helped her fear of heights, because she didn't want to think how far above anything solid she stood at that moment.)

But when she looked up, she had to catch her breath.

Above her was the most brilliant golden sky she had ever seen. It rippled with every passing moment, glistening with warm reds, yellows, and oranges. The sky seemed to have an aqueous quality to it, like if Priscilla reached out with her hand, she would feel a wet, spongy sky instead of just air.

"_Priscilla,_" a soft voice said from the mists. "_You made it._"

"Z-Zenith?" she gasped, trying to find the source of the voice. "Are you - are you here?"

"_No, I am somewhere else. But I can see you in the Johto shrine in the sky - you made it._"

Priscilla let out a breathy laugh, unable to believe it. "Y-yeah. Um - what - what do I do now?"

"_You don't remember?_" Priscilla hung her head in shame, but Zenith didn't seem to mind. "_Ah, it's been a long time. I need you to hold up the cup to the sky and tell it, 'Zenith sent me to capture the sunset'. That is all you need to do._"

Biting back her fears of everything, Priscilla unscrewed the lid to the travel mug and stretched her arms to the sky, lifting the open mug as far up as it would go.

Taking a deep breath to quell her dizziness, she told the sky, "Zenith sent me to capture the sunset."

For a split second, the world seemed to stop. The sky froze and the sun stopped setting.

Then the entire fiery sky plunged down around her, and Priscilla screamed. She couldn't tell where she was, who she was, or what she was doing - when she closed her eyes, she still saw the brilliant gold fire all around her, scalding her skin and asking her questions and bringing dead things back to life and trying to find one specific thing that never even existed -

And then she saw a brilliant bird flying overhead into the land of the dead, disappearing inside a light green stone on a ring of a girl she didn't recognize. The fire around her burned her, and she tried to open her mouth to scream for help, but nothing came out.

"_Sweetie, relax,_" a soft voice said from behind her. Priscilla wanted to scream when she heard Darcy's voice, but she couldn't seem to do that, either. Her heartbeat began to speed up and up until she thought it would burst, but then she felt two dark, almost-human arms wrap around her middle. They seemed to glow black against the blinding gold of the sunset around her, making her feel oddly at ease. "_Relax. It will all be over in a moment._"

"D-Dar-"

"_Shh, shh,_" Darcy whispered. "_Don't speak. Just relax._"

"But I don't - I don't want to die."

"_You won't die, sweetie,_" the ghost murmured as she hugged her former trainer close. "_Everything will be fine. Just relax._"

Priscilla squeezed her eyes shut, not believing her lying ghost one bit. Of _course_ she was going to die. Nothing this painful and blinding and overwhelming could -

Then it was over, just as abruptly as it started.

Priscilla found herself completely intact on the rocky landing, holding up the travel mug to the evening sky. The golden staircase was nowhere to be seen, and the sun had already dipped below the jagged horizon to the west.

"_Well?_" Indira asked from right next to her.

Wondering if she had imagined the whole thing, she lowered the travel mug to her eye level.

She gasped.

Inside the mug, filling it almost to the top, was the most brilliant golden liquid she had ever seen.

"I - I got it!" Priscilla said, stunned. "I - I got the sunset."

Indira nodded, flicking her tail and not looking too surprised. "_Good. Now that you have it, I'm afraid we have to leave Mountain 3-04. We've been seen._"

"What? Why?" the little girl with the sunset cried, looking fearfully at the twilight sky. "It's dark already, and I'm really tired! Can't we just camp here?"

"_If we did, you would be dead by morning. Now release your medicham - we'll be running all night if you want any chance of getting back to your homeland alive._"


	29. Sacrifice

Chapter 29: Sacrifice

By the time Vrinda and Indira reached the stone bridge from Mountain 3-04 to one of the joining mountains, Priscilla could see why Indira was so keen on running away.

Behind them, something was writhing around on the peak of Sunset Mountain, and Priscilla swore she could see a golden staircase crumbling into nothingness.

The escaping trio dashed into the tunnel, and Priscilla welcomed the quiet darkness of the rocky mountain's insides.

---

"_We can take a break down here,_" Indira said after they exited the tunnel, gesturing with her tail to a small, shallow ravine in the side of the mountain. "_You can catch your breath and switch your medicham out for someone else. She might have to take you down the mountain to Cianwood City later, and you don't want her to stumble._"

Priscilla glanced at her medicham, who looked a bit queasy at the idea of slipping on the descent to Cianwood. On the tram ride up from the town, they had watched out the windows - they saw the steep drop down to the beaches below. They wouldn't stand a chance.

"_A break might be good,_" Vrinda admitted. "_Just sayin'._"

"Y-yeah. Um, return," she said quietly, zapping her trusty medicham back into her ultra ball. "I guess Jet would be pretty good..." Reaching into her backpack, Priscilla pulled out a familiar safari ball and released a familiar yanma. He glanced up at her worried face and gave her a reassuring buzzing sound.

Priscilla wanted to feel reassured - her best friend (because Jet _had_ to be her best pokemon friend now. Who else could she let it be?) was out with her. A small, very much _not_ reassuring thought passed through her mind - that a certain ghost pokemon would have been a much better choice for an evening companion - but she chased it away.

"_Now,_" Indira said with a voice much calmer than Priscilla felt, "_take out the grimoire. I'm going to try and tell you as much as I know - as much information as will be helpful to you - in case something happens tonight._"

Her words felt eerily similar to the last thing Celest said. Priscilla gulped back the urge to vomit and pulled out the grimoire, squinting down at the pages to try and see them in the dim dusk light. "Um, here it is."

Indira seemed to have no problems with night vision. She merely lifted a claw to the book and daintily turned the pages until she reached the one she wanted: the page listing all the inside and outside haelliads.

When she did, Priscilla could have sworn that more names were crossed out since she last looked, but she blamed it on her eyes. It _was_ getting pretty dark out, after all.

"_Now, I want you to listen very closely. The key piece of information that I have relates to locations,_" Indira hissed. "_I have a very good idea about where each haelliad has to reside, and I can usually tell where the dead ones passed away. But I must warn you - not all of them listen to the rules._" Her tail flicked angrily. "_I cannot account for those who disobey._"

"But -"

"_Don't speak - we need to do this efficiently. How good is your memory?_"

Priscilla and Jet exchanged a worried look. "Um, I think my memory's okay," Priscilla said, still looking at Jet. "Um, Jet - do you think you could, um, help? Y'know, to remember stuff?"

The bug nodded slowly. He had a fairly good memory, but that wasn't the problem. Even if he remembered something that Priscilla forgot, how would he be able to tell her? She could barely understand his "_yes_" and "_no_" - how would he be able to convey something more complicated than a yes-or-no answer?

But he kept his worries to himself. Begrudgingly, he knew that he would be there for Priscilla if she faltered in whatever she had to do. Hadn't he been there for her since the very beginning? (Save for her little disappearing act in Mount Coronet, but that didn't really count.)

"I - I think I can remember," the trainer said to the feline haelliad, "w-we won't forget."

The cat narrowed her red eyes, glaring at the little girl and making her feel small. "_Very well. Can you see the lists?_"

"Um," Priscilla began, taking out her Pokedex and turning it on. As soon as the lists appeared on the backlit screen, she smiled a bit. "Yes."

Indira took a deep breath, her red gem shining dully - Priscilla couldn't tell if it glowed on its own, or was merely reflecting the light from her Pokedex screen. "_Zenith,_" she began, and Priscilla took a deep breath in anticipation. "_He has to stay under cover of water and earth._"

Priscilla let her breath out. That wasn't helpful - she already _knew_ that. She saw from the very beginning that he lived behind a waterfall. But she said nothing, not wanting to anger a creature as big as her and with much sharper teeth and nails.

"_Nadir,_" she continued, "_she must stay close to that which she is sworn to kill. Darcy,_" Priscilla's throat tightened, "_is chained into that which we serve. Shyama had to stay inside a living forest of darkness - he died in Eterna City, Sinnoh._"

Priscilla winced, remembering all too well the ripped-up corpse in Eterna City. She then winced again when she heard a low moaning coming from Mountain 3-04.

"_Badr must run forever on a road of moving water. Georgiana lived near those plunged into dreams, and she died in Canalave City, Sinnoh. Hallam had to stay near where the earth breaths, and he died near Mount Stark on Sinnoh's Northeast Island._"

The moaning came closer, rising in pitch. Jet took to the air, hovering nervously next to his trainer.

"_Farran was placed near where time stood still, and he died on Mount Coronet's Spear Pillar shrine. Kynaston was to fly in the skies of the north when ice fell from the sky - he died a few kilometers north of Mount Coronet's peak. Lyrisa is to never stay in one place, nor stay in one form._"

Jet tried to tell Priscilla that something was getting closer, but she was busy trying to remember Indira's location information in case it actually became useful.

"_Wystan was to follow those who were destined for victory and aid them in their most difficult choices - he died in Lake Acuity's cavern. Beatrice was forced to follow the sun around the world - she died in Johto's golden city._"

"A-and the outsides?" Priscilla asked, giving Jet a confused look. She couldn't understand why he seemed so jumpy - the moaning wasn't _that_ much closer, was it?

"_I regret to say I do not know their exact roles,_" Indira said with a sigh, "_but I do know that Vael died in the Lake of Rage, Hamako died in the Olivine City Lighthouse, and Umiou died in Azalea Town's Slowpoke Well - all of them in Johto. I expect to die here, in the Cianwood Range._" Priscilla once again gulped back the urge to vomit, but Indira continued in her standard monotone."_Mara left Johto when Beatrice died. Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit were chained to their caves, and I expect they will die there, as well, if they have not already. Celest died in the ocean north of Johto. The remaining live in Hoenn._"

Priscilla frowned. "Hoenn?"

"_Yes,_" the cat replied with a flick of her tail. The moaning was getting louder, and it was clear to both Jet and Priscilla that Indira heard it, though she tried not to show it. "_There is one other thing you should know before you leave._"

"W-what?"

"_You know that if a haelliad dies, those below in ranking inherit the higher position, correct?_" When Priscilla nodded, Indira continued: "_what you probably do not know is that no matter how many die, we still retain one key characteristic of our original number - our pair. You see that there are twelve of us in each list? We are linked to the corresponding number in the opposite list. For example,_" Indira said with a slight head gesture towards the lists on the book, though Priscilla could only read from the screen due to the lack of sunlight, "_I was originally fourth. Therefore, I am linked to Shyama, who was also fourth._"

"Yeah," Priscilla said, not entirely sure where Indira was going, "is that important?"

"_If one specific number dies,_" Indira replied in a much more indifferent tone than Priscilla felt appropriate, "_the other cannot live long._"

The girl with the Pokedex felt the pit of her stomach drop away. Shyama was dead - his name had been struck-through ever since she won her first badge back in Eterna City. "So - so you -"

But Priscilla couldn't finish - the sound of the tunnel behind them suddenly caving in cut her off. Immediately, Indira was up, scrambling back towards the trail leading to the tram station. "_You must run!_"

Jet took off ahead of Priscilla, who had to pause to put away her Pokedex and the grimoire. As she dashed off after her yanma, she suddenly realized that Indira was hanging behind. "Indira!"

"_Run! I will follow!_"

Jet screamed for Priscilla to follow him, and finally she did, stumbling over rocks made invisible by the dark. Every time she glanced behind, she saw Indira's hyper beams, pay days, icy winds, and night slashes tearing at a giant, amorphous foe.

She kept running, following Jet's frantic attempts to use his signal beam attack as a sort of makeshift flashlight. When she fell, she tried to pull herself up and ignore her bleeding knees and keep running.

Then she heard Indira scream and scratch at rocks, and she turned just in time to see the cat thrown over the mountainside.

Three seconds later she heard a sickening sound, one in between a thud and a splatter.

And then their foe surrounded her and her dragonfly, breathing in on them and choking their souls.

Priscilla squeezed her eyes shut, trying to breathe and failing.

"Help," she wheezed. "P-please - Zen - D-Dar -"

Jet wriggled against their opponent, seeing a flash of blue before he lost control of his wings and fell to the ground next to his suffocating trainer.


	30. Southwest

Chapter 30: Southwest

As it turned out, Priscilla remembered things fairly well for someone who couldn't breathe much oxygen.

When the amorphous cloud-enemy closed in around her and reached into her mouth, trying to smother her, she remembered a tiny, detailed memory.

Back in Sinnoh, before she met Darcy and right prior to meeting Lucas, she came across a shiny roselia. That roselia attacked her and probably could have killed her - but she didn't. When she was about to, when Priscilla stumbled in her attempt to run away, she heard a voice in her head.

Zenith's voice, telling her to use the ground - that the ground was her friend.

It caused her to turn around as she fell, kicking dirt into the roselia's eyes and giving her enough time to get up and run. By then, Lucas's infernape was able to intervene, defeating the roselia, saving Priscilla's life, and linking her up with someone who would give her what she then thought to be just an average electronic encyclopedia that didn't work.

But look where that "glitchy Pokedex" got her.

And...

Priscilla opened her eyes against their foe, struggling against it with her hands to reach her backpack. Somehow she felt her hands plunge into the main pocket and wrap around two spherical objects.

The ground was her friend.

"GO!" she shrieked, however muffled it may have sounded. She pulled her hands out and pushed the release buttons, the blinding white flashes of her pokemon appearing causing their enemy to retreat a bit.

The retreat gave Tor and Blizzard enough room to appear - and enough room for both Priscilla and Jet to catch their breath.

She tried to give them orders, but she couldn't stop coughing. But that was enough - her earth pokemon were her friends.

They would protect her.

They knew what to do.

Or, at least, _Tor_ knew what to do. He barked orders to Bliz, who slammed his front feet down onto the ground, creating a tremor that knocked their enemy back. Jet heard the grotle yell for him to get Priscilla out, and the bug felt himself take to the air and tug gently on Priscilla's ponytail.

As she got up and began to stumble forward, trying to keep her balance amidst the tremors (and not fall off the mountain), a cloud of razor-sharp leaves filled the night, slashing wildly at the shadowy enemy. Tor tried his hardest to focus and create as many leaves as possible.

And while he was at it, he glanced to his left at the retreating bodies of his trainer and his teammate. They were stumbling too close to the side of the mountain -

The enemy was close, but he knew a special attack, really deep down -

Priscilla gasped as a thorny vine shot out of the mountainside, wrapping around her ankle and pulling her upright and away from the edge. She kept running, only looking back to see Tor and Bliz exploding the ground into a shower of leaves and gravel.

Jet understood - Tor seemed to inherently _know_ this enemy, and could see the grotle's plan. He wanted to make it hard for their opponent to move forward - he wanted to crumble the mountain down on top of the enemy, if he had to. He _couldn't _let the enemy move forward and follow them.

The little yanma also heard Tor yelling - but not just to their piloswine teammate. The grotle was yelling _at their opponent_.

Jet found this strange, but not strange enough to focus his attention on.

After all, he had to help Priscilla find her way back to the tram station, where Vrinda could help her climb down to the Pokemon Center. That was his job. He still wasn't that fond of Priscilla as a person, per se, but he didn't want her to die because he couldn't do his job as her pokemon.

---

"Where're Tor and Bliz?" Priscilla wheezed as they stopped for a breather. Jet didn't know how close they were to the tram station, but they could see the ocean now, and that meant they were fairly close to the Cianwood beaches.

But they did know that they couldn't hear any battle sounds behind them, nor could they feel any tremors. That meant they were far enough away to be out of danger, which meant they could catch their breath (and let Priscilla fish out a flashlight).

"I'm - I'm gonna let Vrinda out," Priscilla said as she shakily grabbed hold of the ultra ball. Jet watched as she dropped the ball onto the rocky path below, looking away when the blinding white light exploded from the capsule, and looked again when the psychic fighter appeared.

The medicham narrowed her eyes. "_Tor and Blizzard - where are they?_"

"Fighting that thing," Priscilla mumbled, trying to pick up Vrinda's ultra ball to put back in her backpack. She kept dropping it, as her hands were still shaking, so Vrinda reached down to pick it up for her.

"_Wait - what thing?_"

"A big - big thing. It - it killed - it killed - it killed Indi-dira!"

Vrinda blinked a few times and rubbed her forehead. "_That's...not good._" Jet glared at her, but she didn't seem to notice. "_So, uh, Tor and Bliz - are they doin' okay? Against whatever it was that's chasing you, or something?_"

"Um - I - I think they were d-doing okay, but I don't -"

"_Are we gonna be safe in the city?_" Vrinda demanded, her hands on her hips after tossing her ultra ball back over to Priscilla.

The girl bit her lip. "I - I think so -"

"_Jet,_" the psychic said, turning to face the bug. "_Can you fly fast?_"

Jet nodded, though he felt he shouldn't have had to respond at all. What his species lacked in strength, defense, and general fighting ability they made up for in speed and agility. Plus, he was fairly small and light through the air, allowing him to avoid oncoming attacks more easily.

"_Okay, then here's what we're gonna do,_" Vrinda began in a hushed voice. "_Priscilla, you give Tor and Bliz's pokeballs to Jet. He's gonna go fly back and try and find 'em._"

Hearing this, Jet began to feel sick, but he decided to keep his selfish thoughts to himself.

"_Then you and I are gonna run for the city. I'll get you down the mountainside so we don't have to wait for that tram-thing. We can find What's-His-Face, that Johto trainer with more powerful pokemon than you. Jet, if you stay hidden - I mean, if you can't come down to the city - then we can send that guy and his pokemon up to find you._"

The yanma didn't think Vrinda's plan sounded that great for him, but it made enough sense that he muttered an affirmative. But inside, rather than banking on Ichiro to come save him if he couldn't get Tor and Blizzard off the mountain himself, he hoped that Tor and Bliz weren't in too much trouble to help him help them escape.

Because otherwise, he figured he'd get crushed, or something. After all, he _was_ just a bug - and not even an evolved one at that.

Priscilla sniffed back her panting and sobbing and shakily handed Jet the pokeball and ultra ball that normally held their grotle and piloswine teammates, respectively.

He took them carefully in his spindly bug legs, and gave her a long stare.

She stared back.

"Am I gonna see you again?" she asked woodenly.

If Jet had shoulders, he would have shrugged.

But instead, he just stared at her for a moment longer, then took to the air and flew back in the direction they had run from.

Priscilla took a deep breath and then took Vrinda's rubbery hand as the medicham lead her across the rocky slope to the cliffs.

---

"I see it!" Priscilla gasped as they scrambled up a steep incline. Indeed, both human and medicham could see the ocean and sandy beaches down below, sparkling in the moonlight and reflecting the barest post-sunset glow from the mountains.

"_Alright, you ready?_" Vrinda asked as she stepped in front of Priscilla. "_Get on._"

Priscilla took another deep breath and threw her arms around Vrinda's shoulders, trying _not_ to look at the sheer drop they were about to do.

"D'you think we lost that thing?" she couldn't help but ask. If there was something that possibly scared her more than heights at that moment, it was the strange, amorphous foe that seemed to keep finding her and killing off every new ally she found.

Priscilla moved up and down as Vrinda shrugged. "_Dunno. I mean - I wasn't out when it attacked, so, like, I don't really know what it looks like. I felt it, but I didn't see it, y'know?_"

The trainer nodded and closed her eyes as Vrinda began to use her newfound rock climb technique in reverse, beginning the slow descent down the cliffs.

She continued slowly for a few minutes, and Priscilla kept her eyes squeezed shut for the entire time. As she felt Vrinda step down handhold over handhold, foothold over foothold, she almost began to feel calm, as if her medicham was rocking her to sleep...

Then Vrinda stopped.

Priscilla opened her eyes, careful to look up instead of down. She frowned. They were way too close to the top of the cliffs to be done climbing down.

"Why did we stop?" Priscilla yelled over the roar of the ocean winds.

She felt Vrinda tense underneath her. "_Something's following us. I can hear its thoughts._"

Priscilla coughed back a wave of nausea. "Does that mean -"

She never had a chance to finish her question, because at that moment, a torn, vine-and-mud-covered monster dove over the cliff edge and slammed into Vrinda, dislodging her hold on the cliffside.

The medicham shrieked in pain and panic, pushing off from the rocks with her feet to get more distance from their foe - since she was falling anyway - and wrapped her arms around Priscilla, shielding her trainer with her body. As they began to fall, the monster struck again, hitting Vrinda's bare back as she began to focus on teleporting herself and her trainer to safety in the town below.

Priscilla watched in horror as the medicham's eyes rolled into the back of her head mid-teleport, and saw that while Vrinda managed to get a bit farther away from the monster, they were only halfway down the cliff.

As Vrinda fell into unconsciousness, Priscilla and her pokemon began their free fall to the town hundreds of meters below.

The girl opened her mouth to scream, but stopped - something had slowed their fall.

She looked down to see a familiar dark-skinned, blonde woman holding her hands up from far below. A strange green figure stood next to the woman, hands digging into the cliffside and creating a sideways earthquake, shooting up some sort of shadow into the midair battlefield Priscilla had fallen into.

Around her, the air thickened and darkened, shadows gathering around Priscilla and her unconscious bodyguard medicham. The monster seemed to panic as a red-eyed, grinning face appeared in the shadows clinging to the cliffside, and the world tipped upside down as the ghost emerged from the rocks.

It was the most terrifying ghost Priscilla had ever seen - excluding Darcy, of course - and it emanated pure, unadulterated _power._

The ghost grinned and shot a pulsing wave of dark energy at the monster, causing the thing to scream and writhe in the air.

Priscilla then realized the ghost was doing something else - hypnosis. She opened her mouth to scream and tell it to stop, but soon she found herself slipping into sleep, barely having enough time to watch as a yellow dragon swooped up next to her, along with a familiar owl holding an equally familiar weasel...

---

"_Where are you?" Priscilla asked, trying to see into the cave behind the waterfall._

_Zenith smiled - she couldn't really see him, but she could tell he was smiling. "Where do you think?"_

"_You're...behind a waterfall," the girl replied, turning to look behind her. Below her, the ocean spread out for miles beneath wheeling wingulls and pellipers. The ocean spray felt warm and salty on her skin and tongue. Once she realized she was standing in the middle of a waterfall, she looked down at what she was standing on - a spongey blue platform of some sort, one with red, jellylike patches and a soft red jewel in the middle. "How did I get here?"_

"_You haven't gotten here yet," Zenith replied. Priscilla turned and squinted against the glare off the waterfall. It was like she could see the outline of the man - a hunched-over man, one who looked old and tired. "But I hope you will. You have the sunset now; all you need to do is bring it to me."_

"_Then what?"_

"_Then you must return to your homeland," the man replied, "because there are some who believe you could be the one we're looking for."_

"_What are you looking for?"_

"_A way to rebuild the foundation of the world. It seems we are missing the sun."_

"_Missing the sun?" Priscilla asked, confused. "Um, what does that mean?"_

_Zenith sighed. "I do not know. It is only a clue."_

_Priscilla opened her mouth to ask another question, but before she could get any farther, the scene with Zenith and the waterfall to the ocean melted away into darkness._

_She gasped._

_She was back - back in the dark world where Darcy had brought her. Gone was the squishy blue-and-red platform, gone was the salty sea breeze, gone was the roar of the towering waterfall. Instead, she now had hard red rocks to stand on, air that seemed to twist and squeeze her body, and a silence so loud and thick she could barely breathe._

_Panic washed over her, and she hugged herself. She felt cold and alone. "Let me out!"_

"_No," Darcy's sickly sweet voice said from the shadows. "I'm alone, sweetie. I want you here with me."_

_The hair on the back of Priscilla's neck stood on end as she heard the slow thud-thud-thud of Darcy's feet on the rock. She didn't turn - she didn't want to see Darcy. "Go away."_

"_But I don't want to," the creature whispered. "I'm trying so hard, you see, and you just keep pushing me away. Why do you do this to me, sweetie? Pris-ci-lla?"_

"_I hate you," Priscilla said, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."_

"_You don't mean that."_

"_I hate you!" she shrieked, trying to turn around to say it to the monster's face, but she found she couldn't. Her body wouldn't move - she just had to stand there, facing away from that which she hated most. "I hate you more than anything in the world! Go away! Leave me alone!"_

"_I wish I could, sweetie," the ghost said softly, her breath warm on Priscilla's neck. Priscilla frowned. Did Darcy have warm breath in that dark world?_

_Something was wrong..._

_Priscilla's stomach tightened. Darcy had some new trick up her sleeve, some new way to bring her old trainer back into that horrible, horrible world._

"_But I can't," the hissing voice continued. "Because I enjoy being with you, sweetie. You and your...youthful energy. It's so enticing. Something I could eat right up."_

_Priscilla gasped as she felt cold feelers snap around her neck, squeezing tight. She couldn't breathe -_

"_There's something I need, sweetie," the ghost said coldly, "and you didn't get it for me. I'm wasting away, my dearest Pris-ci-lla, and you refuse to help me. I am going to say this once..."_

_Priscilla tried to bring her hands to her neck so she could wrench the tendrils away, but her hands wouldn't move. Air wouldn't come into her lungs anymore, and she felt her mind spin and break apart with every added bit of pressure Darcy put on her jugular._

"_I. Will. Not. Let. You. Get. Away. From. Me."_

_The Distortion World began to swim around Priscilla, digging into her skin and pulling her apart. She briefly saw a floating image of herself glow in front of her, but it disappeared as a dark poltergeist ripped out the eyes, then the skin, then the mind, then the throat..._

"_You. Are. MINE."_

_Priscilla watched as the floating image of herself burst into a shower of bloody flakes, a twisted perversion of the sun flakes she so dearly missed from her happier dreams. But as the flakes began to gather on the red rocks at her feet, she saw something else - a shadow._

_The shadow sprouted red eyes and a toothy grin, and for some reason, Priscilla felt Darcy's hold on her weaken. This shadow, the one she recognized from before, had a different quality about it than Darcy or any of the haelliads, as if it was a sort of anti-haelliad. "I'm not yours," she gasped, reaching out feebly for the helpful face in the shadows once she realized she could move her arms. "I hate you, and I'll never be yours!"_

_Darcy screamed as the world exploded around them, and Priscilla reached out to the poisonous face in the shadows in front of her._

---

Priscilla woke up to see a purple ghost with red eyes and a toothy grin staring down at her. She felt like she should have screamed, but all she could to was roll over and throw up into a bucket conveniently placed by her futon bed.

"_However unpleasant that must have been, you should thank me,_" the purple ghost said in a translated female voice, one both haughty and vaguely caring. "_If it weren't for my eating your dream, that other ghost would have never left your nightmare_." Priscilla looked up after her stomach's contents had all landed safely in the bucket, and saw a pink pokemon translator device on a low table nearby. "_I assume you've never been subjected to a dream eater attack before, have you, little girl?_"

"That's - that's Crystal's," Priscilla said feebly and without answering the ghost's question, pointing to the device before wiping her mouth.

The ghost nodded. "_It is. I am Obake, Crystal's gengar. I have been on her team for many years now._"

"O-oh."

"_You are alright?_"

"Y-y-yeah..."

"_Good. Because,_" the ghost added with a wide grin that reminded Priscilla too much of her old misdreavus, "_you will need to be very much 'alright' if you wish to continue on the path that book of yours lays out for you._"

"M-my book?" Priscilla asked, her mind foggy. She sat up, but regretted it - if she hadn't already thrown up everything in her stomach, she probably would have thrown up again. "Th-the g-grimoire?"

Obake grinned wider, if that was at all possible. "_Yes. But I do believe that other book, the innocent one, could portend more than you think._"

With that, the ghost faded into the shadows in the corner, leaving Priscilla alone in the small room. Priscilla blinked and looked around - there wasn't much in the room, and the rice paper windows only let in light, not pictures of the outside world. Everything looked like old driftwood, except for the bamboo mat underneath her (rather uncomfortable) futon bed.

The only furniture was the low wooden table next to her (and the now vomit-filled bucket), and on it was Crystal's translator and -

"My bag," the girl said as she carefully shoved the bucket away, giving her access to the table. She dragged over the bag and opened the main compartment.

Her heart fell when she realized that none of her pokeballs were inside.

But then she remembered Obake's comment about the book, and pulled out both books she had with her.

The first one, the old black tome with the dusty red gem on its cover, was all too familiar and all too fitting to the ghost's comment.

But the other?

"The Southern Seas," read the spine and the cover. Priscilla frowned, opening the book for the first time since she used it as a time-passer on the summit of Mount 3-04. It still had the same contents - descriptions of the sea routes of Hoenn, dreamy pictures of strange seafaring pokemon Priscilla had never seen, tales of daring adventures into the very depths of the ocean itself.

Priscilla frowned. "How..."

"Priscilla!"

Priscilla looked up to see Crystal slamming open the sliding door to her room and running in, though she stopped when she saw the bucket. "Oh - uh, I guess it was a good idea that we brought that, huh?" She turned to the woman following her - or, rather, the womanlike pokemon, her jynx. "Um, Kiss, can you take care of that?"

The jynx gave her trainer a pouty glare, but nevertheless teleported away with the bucket and its smelly contents. Crystal then stepped over and sat down next to Priscilla's futon, a sad smile on her face. "You okay, kid?"

The little girl opened her mouth to say "yeah", but instead hiccuped and asked, "where're my pokemon?"

"They're in the Pokemon Center," Crystal replied. "They're fine. Really. They're all just very tired. Your yanma found the other two - sort of battered up after a tough battle, and tired, but fine other than that - and managed to hide with them under a rock. Ichiro's team came across them yesterday. You've been asleep for two days."

"What - what about Vrinda?"

"Your medicham? She got hit pretty bad by this weird ghost attack," Crystal said with a frown, one that hinted towards her own lack of understanding about the enemy that had attacked Priscilla. "But she's fine, too. She just needs some time to rest in the 'Center. Ichiro's there now, making sure nothing happens to them while they're healing."

Priscilla nodded. "Um - what - what happened?"

Crystal sighed. "You got attacked by something, and we're still not sure what. I mean, we were _going_ to ask Indira, but..." She trailed off, looking away. "Hey, um, that book of yours - the black one - it tells you who's dead, right?"

"Y-yeah."

"Can you look up Indira?"

Priscilla remembered Indira tell her that she was fourth of the outsides, so she opened the book without using her Pokedex to translate it. She flipped to the list page and looked at the first list.

The fourth name on the list, the one that had to be Indira's, had a thin black line through it. Just to be sure, Priscilla looked at the other list - its fourth name was crossed out, too.

"She's dead, isn't she?" Crystal asked quietly. When Priscilla nodded, she sighed. "I feel...ugh. I don't know. Horrible, I guess."

"Did, um, did you know her?"

"Kind of. I spent a summer in this mountain range," the champion explained, waving a hand behind her. Priscilla assumed that meant they were still in Cianwood City. "Long story short, I met her when I got lost. It was weird," she added, "she acted vicious towards me until I told her my battling name - 'Crystal'. Then she asked about the names of my friends. Then she said she wouldn't kill me, and said something about me being important, but not important enough." She glanced down at Priscilla. "Does that mean anything to you?"

The girl shook her head, though she heard a nagging voice in the back of her head telling her she did, deep down.

"She did seem really interested in Risa - er, Lisa, I mean - and Ichiro, though," Crystal continued in a wistful voice, "but then when I brought Ichiro up to meet her, she seemed...disappointed. She never met Lisa."

Priscilla nodded, not entirely sure where Crystal was going.

"Um, you met Lisa, right? And Gin - or, you know, Silver?"

"Yeah."

"Did - I mean - did either of them ever say anything about why they were there? I mean, you know...excluding college and work and normal stuff like that?"

Priscilla shook her head. "I don't think so. Um, but Darcy - my misdreavus - she really didn't like Lisa."

Crystal nodded, looking off into the distance. "Obake, my gengar, kept saying how Lisa 'got involved with ghosts', and how it was going to kill her if she ever got too close to them. I never really got it - I mean, Obake's kinda weird, and she sometimes just says stuff to say stuff - and Lisa never caught any ghost-type pokemon, or anything. But now..."

The younger trainer felt her stomach sink when Crystal trailed off. "What? What happened?"

The next-in-line Johto champion looked at her with cloudy eyes. "We know what happened to Sinnoh."

"Wh-what?"

Crystal sighed. "I - I don't really know how to say this." She scooted closer to Priscilla and stared into the younger girl's eyes. "Before I tell you, I want you to tell me something."

"What?"

"You got the sunset into a cup, right?"

"Y-yeah..."

"What are you going to do with it now that you have it? Do you need to take it somewhere?"

Priscilla closed her eyes and tried to remember. Before Darcy dragged her into a nightmare, she had been talking to Zenith... "I need to take it to...to somebody. Somebody in the middle of a giant waterfall on an island in the middle of the ocean. A warm ocean - one with birds and sun and deep water and pokemon I've never seen."

When she opened her eyes, she saw Crystal's frown. "A giant waterfall? In the middle of the ocean?"

"Yeah."

"How big would you say it was? Bigger than the one at the top of the Pokemon League's island in Sinnoh?"

Priscilla thought for a moment. She'd seen pictures of the waterfall that fell from the top of the Pokemon League to the caves below - it was one of the largest waterfalls in the world. "I dunno, maybe about the same size."

"But it fell to the ocean, right? Not to a pool on the island?"

"It fell to the ocean. It was warm and salty."

Crystal nodded. "I think I know where this waterfall is," she said slowly.

Priscilla brightened immediately. Crystal knew where it was? That was great! She could take Priscilla there, and she could give the sunset to Zenith and he would tell her what to do next, and then she could go back to Sinnoh and -

But wait.

Crystal said something about what happened to Sinnoh.

The Sinnohan girl shrunk back upon herself. The way Crystal said it didn't make it sound like a good thing. "Wh-where's the waterfall? And what happened to Sinnoh?"

Taking a deep breath, Crystal began to answer Priscilla's question. "The waterfall you're talking about is the Evergrande City waterfall. It's in Hoenn - it's on their Pokemon League island, just like the waterfall in Sinnoh's. It falls to the ocean, and..."

"And what?"

"And it connects the sea routes to the mouth of Hoenn's Victory Road. The Hoenn Pokemon League considers it _part_ of Victory Road. They view it as a rite of passage before beginning the cave maze, and because of that, they only allow people with all eight Hoenn badges to access it."

Priscilla's jaw dropped. "But - but what about you? Can't you get to it?"

"I can," Crystal replied with a shrug, "but that's because I'm in a political position where I can get around boundaries like that. You're not - not unless you go to Hoenn and win all eight badges yourself."

"But - but I can't! I need to go to Sinnoh right now and -"

"Priscilla," Crystal interrupted, putting a hand on Priscilla's shoulder. "You can't go back. Not right now."

The little girl felt tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Why - why not?"

"Because," Johto's counterpart to Sinnoh's Dawn said slowly, "Sinnoh is temporarily frozen. Do you remember that red cage around the continent? Inside that cage, time moves really, really slowly. That cage won't go away until Sinnoh and the rest of the world reach the same calendar day."

"What day?" Priscilla asked, her pit of her stomach falling away.

"November 1. They are currently stuck with an October 31 that, while it will feel like only a day to them, will be much longer to the rest of the world."

Priscilla's heart began to race. "What day is it today?"

"November 19."

"And - then - then when are we gonna match up?"

"The next time we will be able to access the Sinnoh Region," Crystal explained, "will be just under five years from now."

Priscilla managed to hold back her tears just long enough to ask: "What am I gonna do for five _years?_"

"You," the Johto trainer said with a slight smile, "are going to defeat all eight of the Hoenn gyms. You're going to be a Hoenn trainer."

---

Author's Note: This is the last chapter of Arc 3: "The Sunset", and the next chapter will be the start of Arc 4: "The Alias". Oh, and if you're wondering...I will be skipping a lot when I cover Priscilla's Hoenn journey. My goal is to spend no more than ten chapters in Hoenn (or, at least, before going back to Sinnoh), though I have no clear set outline for what to include. That means the Priscilla you're going to see by Chapter 40 will be fifteen years old - so if she starts to act more "out-of-character" with each consecutive chapter, it's because she is growing up.


	31. Shannon Nguyen

Arc IV - The Alias

Chapter 31: Shannon Nguyen

The little girl outside the Rustboro City Gym Academy took a deep breath and brushed a pink flower petal off her shirt. It was April 4 - she had been eleven years old for three whole days now.

She could do this.

"You must be Miss Nguyen," the receptionist said once she stepped inside. "You're meeting with Principal Lui, right?"

"Right," she replied with a brave smile. _Fake it 'till you make it,_ she reminded herself. She also made sure to take a "powerful breath", as her martial-arts-teacher-slash-supposed-first-pokemon taught her. "Am I late?"

"No, no, you're right on time. Come on in," the woman said with a bright smile. The girl sized her up: she had bright brown eyes, almost almond-shaped, like a lot of people in Hoenn. Her black hair was pinned back underneath a soft green bandana, and her dark skin contrasted nicely with her red-and-gold jewelry. She wore clothes that, while they bore the Rustboro Gym seal and were in the city's standard gray, seemed too casual to wear to work.

But that was Hoenn - people treated even their most serious business with a slight casual air. "You're supposed to 'go with the flow' here," the girl's mentor had told her when they arrived in Oldale Town almost five months prior. "Things will take the time they need to take. You think five years is too long to get eight badges? It's normal here. That's because people don't train all the time - they train in an extended summer season. The rest of the time they go to school or do something else. Go with the flow."

The girl muttered it to herself - "go with the flow". She kept the mantra in her head as she stepped into the principal's office and sat down across a desk from a middle-aged Chinese woman.

Principal Allison Lui smiled when she saw the girl. "Shannon Nguyen, right?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. I'm Shannon Nguyen from Lilycove City," she said slowly, trying to make sure to smile and sound convincing. "I'm - I'm here to apply for a training sponsorship. From your school."

"Of course, of course," the principal said with a wave of her hand. "Do you have pokemon already? Of course you do," she added with a laugh, "what are they?"

"Um," the girl - "Shannon" - began as she dug two pokeballs out from her pocket. "Here."

She released the first one: a diminutive black-and-grey dog with protruding teeth. He wagged his tail when he saw the girl, but gave the principal a wary eye. "This is Fang, my poochyena. Um, he's gonna be my 'starter', kinda."

"And the other?"

With a flash, a tall figure appeared on the other side of the seated girl. "This is my medicham, Vr - Lakshmi."

"Sorry? I didn't quite catch her name."

"Lakshmi," the girl said quickly, exchanging an uneasy glance with the medicham. "I've had her since I was younger," she explained, "so she's more powerful than Fang. But, um, I was planning on using her for the first gym, since I only have two pokemon, and then I would save her for later."

Principal Lui nodded, sounding pleased by the girl's plan. "Sounds good. Now, did you read about the position we were looking for?"

"Y-yes."

"Just to reiterate," the principal said, placing a stapled packet of papers on the desk in front of the girl. "We want a trainer who plans on challenging all eight gyms. You are planning on doing that, correct?"

"Yes."

"If we pick you, we will arrange to have a camera crew at all of your gym battles. We will record every minute of every gym battle you fight to use as educational material for the school. Regardless of the outcomes of the battles, you will give us the right to use this recorded material in any way we choose in the classroom - are you fine with this?"

"Yes, I am."

"We also want our field trainers to help in catching pokemon to use in the school. You will be given a list of pokemon to capture for every route you travel on, and we expect you to screen each captured pokemon before sending it to us. You will have immediate access to the pokemon on your active team and up to three pokemon in storage, all of whom you may choose," the principal added. "Of course, your poochyena and medicham are exempt from school ownership, though we will house them if necessary. We also want you to blog about your travels for our students to read - you will be expected to post at least once a week during the training season."

The girl nodded. "That sounds fine."

"We will also request that you use many different pokemon throughout your journey. You will have the final say on your team members, of course, but we would prefer it if you try to switch teams after each badge."

"Okay."

The principal smiled. "I think you would be a good choice to sponsor," she said, "and I was impressed by your letter of recommendation from Crystal. The taped battle you sent in wasn't too bad, either. So," she slid an envelope across the table to the girl, "I'd like to add you to our list of sponsors - if," she added with a girlish grin, "you show us your ability to _capture._"

The girl across the table opened the envelope. "Skitty," she said. "You want me to catch you a skitty?"

"You have until tomorrow. If you catch one," Principal Lui said with a wave of her hand, "I'll give you the sponsorship."

The girl named Shannon Nguyen stood up and grinned. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

---

"Okay," Ichiro Tanimura said as he stood with Priscilla outside the Rustboro City Gym. "Remember - you take the test first. If you pass, then you get assigned a time to fight Roxanne."

"Right," Priscilla said as she brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. When Crystal and Ichiro took her to Hoenn, they had her appearance changed a bit - nothing major, mostly just a haircut and different style of dress. Where Priscilla used to have long, dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail, she now had layered hair that fell just past her ears. Crystal also had the hairdresser back in Cianwood take it a shade lighter, and after that, she and Priscilla bought a purple hairband to keep (most of) the hair out of her eyes.

And where Priscilla used to wear unisex t-shirts and baggy shorts, she now wore tank-tops that clung more to her body and ended a third of the way down her thigh, and under that she wore biker shorts. Her running shoes seemed lighter and sleeker than before, and even her hiking boots - for when the terrain got rocky - seemed more stylish, somehow.

She even had a yellow shoulder bag instead of a grey backpack.

Crystal also made Priscilla try to "change her attitude" in addition to all the appearance-changing, but that seemed to be a bit harder than a simple trip to the store.

Not to mention the change in her team...

"So after you get the test and you fight her - do you remember what the gym battles are gonna be like?"

Priscilla nodded. "No trainer boxes," she replied, trying to remember everything Ichiro had told her before. "You're with the pokemon on the gym floor. There are no out-of-bounds lines. There is usually more terrain. You can switch as much as you want between however many pokemon you have, but the first side to have a pokemon knocked out loses."

Ichiro nodded and grinned. "I'm guessing you're thinking that Hoenn's pretty weird, huh?"

The little girl frowned. "I miss Sinnoh."

"Hey! Ix-nay on the Innoh-say," he snapped, looking around nervously.

Priscilla bit her lip, thinking back to the anti-Sinnoh protest she saw just the week before in one of the main squares of Rustboro. "Right. Sorry."

"So," Ichiro said, opening the door. "Ready for your test?"

Priscilla sighed. "Hopefully."

---

"...Dodge and use howl!" Priscilla grunted as she jumped behind a rock with her poochyena. The little dog scrambled in behind her and growled up to the ceiling, his tail puffing up. "You feeling better? Stronger?"

The dog wagged his tail, grinning.

"You wanna do a sand attack on that stupid geodude?"

He grinned and barked an affirmative before running out from behind the rock. Fang growled menacingly, dashing towards the slower-moving geodude. Priscilla frowned - Fang's sand attack _was_ getting in the rock-type's eyes, but she wasn't sure if it would be enough...

She hated this.

The _last_ time she had to go up against a rock-type gym leader, she didn't have a low-level dark-type. She had a fairly powerful grotle whose grass attacks creamed whatever pokemon Roark threw at her.

But she didn't have Tor. She didn't have Tor, she didn't have Jet, and she didn't have Blizzard - and she wouldn't have them again for another four-and-a-half years.

She watched as Roxanne withdrew her geodude and replaced him with a strange blue rock-type pokemon, one the announcer called a "nosepass". Priscilla grinned to make herself feel more confident.

After all, even though she didn't have Jet, Tor, or Bliz, she _did_ have Vrinda.

Or, at least, she had a medicham formerly known as Vrinda.

"Fang, return!" she said as her pokeball snatched the dog back up. "Go, Lakshmi!"

She felt a sort of déjà vu as she saw the medicham appear on another rock-type gym floor. "Lakshmi," she repeated, using the strange name that Vrinda now had to use.

"_Hey, Shannon,_" the medicham said in the same tone of voice. "_You want me to beat up this..._"

"Nosepass?"

"_Yeah...nosepass._"

"Yeah. Um, kick it, or something."

Vrinda jumped forward, using her speed to turn the magnet pokemon around and deliver a crushing blow to the head. Priscilla made sure to dash behind another rock to avoid the flying rubble, and she only poked her head out to watch the battle.

It didn't last long, though - thanks to Vrinda's speed and her type advantage (and extra experience fighting another rock-type gym, even though Roxanne didn't know that), Roxanne's nosepass went down after a few blows.

The gym leader across the battlefield shrugged, returning her nosepass. "Good job," she said as she lightly stepped across the rocky arena towards Priscilla. She held out her hand, and Priscilla saw a glittering silver badge on the woman's left palm. "I believe this is yours."

"Thanks," Priscilla said as she took the badge. "Really, thanks."

Roxanne shrugged again. "Your medicham beat my nosepass. No need to thank me," she added as she turned. Then she stopped. "What was your name again?"

Priscilla smiled. "Shannon. I'm Shannon Nguyen."

---

"Skitty, taillow, wurmple, silcoon, cascoon, shroomish, another poochyena," Priscilla read off the list in the Petalburg Pokemon Center three days later. "I got those already." She glanced down at Fang, who sat next to her with a bored expression on his face. "I guess we just gotta catch a wingull and a zigzagoon and then we can leave."

It was already late May, and although Priscilla had one badge, she was itching to get another one. And although the sponsorship from the school gave her everything she needed in terms of money and backing, she really hated how the terms of her agreement with them slowed her down.

Then again, it wasn't as if she was in _that_ much of a rush.

After all, she had four-and-a-half more years to get the other seven Hoenn badges.

"Ugh," Priscilla mumbled, logging off her Rustboro City Gym Academy email account. "I'm gonna be a teenager once I get to go back."

Fang frowned and lightly headbutted her leg. Priscilla didn't really feel like she connected with him as well as she did with Jet - after all, even when she couldn't understand Jet, she felt like he was intelligent at some level. When she caught Fang as her "starter" six months prior, she thought his dogged loyalty and enthusiasm to fetch things was cute.

Now she found it sort of annoying.

Ichiro promised her that her Hoennese pokemon would eventually act more intelligent and less animal-like, just like all her Sinnohan pokemon had the second she'd captured them. They just took their time.

Or, as she told herself, they went with the flow.

"Go with the flow," she told herself. "Go with the flow." She sighed. "Um, so...after I catch a wingull and a zigzagoon," she added, more to herself than her half-listening poochyena, "I guess I gotta start putting together a team to bring with me to Dewford Town." Smiling, she reached down to ruffle the fur on Fang's head. "You can come. But I promised Principal Lui that I wouldn't use Vri - I mean - _Lakshmi_ anymore, at least not until I got a few more badges."

Sighing again, she remembered how her original team had all left her. All she had left was Fang, and he didn't really count.

Crystal and Ichiro had told her that somebody had been following her name - "Priscilla Vo". When her name appeared in Pokemon Center records in Johto, some outside source had started downloading all files related to her from whichever Center she'd appeared in.

And now that Sinnoh was closed off to the outside world, Crystal thought it would be easier on everyone if she pretended to be a native Hoennese girl. That way she could live in Hoenn without anyone bothering her because she was Sinnohan - and, Priscilla learned, the Hoennese didn't seem to like the Sinnohans.

Apparently, Sinnoh was never really all that well-off with the rest of the world, politically speaking. They just didn't like outsiders, and what with their reluctance to allow foreigners into their region and the years of hostility before joining the Pokemon League Union, nobody else really liked them, either.

Now that Sinnoh had effectively closed itself off to the rest of the world, things were even worse. Riots and protests were popping up around the other three League regions, conspiracy theories kept slithering out of the woodwork, and certain members of the Kantonian government were threatening invasion. It was all the League Union could do to keep things calm and explain the cage situation as best it could while trying to help affected global industries reorient themselves without their Sinnohan exports.

Plus, the Hoenn media would have gone ballistic if they learned a Sinnohan girl had gotten out and was now in _their_ region. Nobody would have left Priscilla alone.

Hence why she was now Shannon Nguyen, and why she was only allowed to keep Vrinda with her. Because yanmas, piloswines, and - especially - grotles weren't native to Hoenn, she couldn't acknowledge them being on her team. So Ichiro had taken temporary custody of Jet and Blizzard, while Crystal took Tor with her.

And the egg - the one that Silver's typhlosion, Assassin, had given her just before she escaped from Sinnoh. She gave that to Crystal, too, seeing as Crystal knew the egg's parents - Assassin and Lisa's typhlosion, Heat - much better than Priscilla did.

Priscilla just missed her old team - she wanted to have Jet, Tor, and Bliz back. And -

Well, she didn't miss Darcy. But Darcy didn't really count. She wasn't a _real_ pokemon, she was a murderous haelliad _pretending_ to be a pokemon, or something like that.

"So, um," Priscilla started, shaking herself out of her reverie. "I guess I'll bring you and...two others." She brought up another Internet browser window, logged into the pokemon storage facility website from the Academy, and scanned her pokemon. "There's no way I'm bringing that skitty - she's too dumb," she said, remembering the irony of how her mother had originally gotten her to go on a training journey with the promise of giving her a glameow one day. Now she had the Hoennese version of a glameow, and she didn't really want it. "I don't want the wurmple, silcoon, or cascoon - they can go to trainers at the school. Um...don't need the other poochyena, since I have you...I guess I'll take out the shroomish and the taillow, at least for now," she said, clicking the necessary buttons to withdraw two of her captures.

She waited as the machine processed the request, and then she heard Fang bark behind her.

"What is it, boy?" she asked, turning.

The poochyena growled and bit down on her bag, pulling it across the Pokemon Center floor.

"No! No! Bad Fang, let go!" Priscilla gasped, jumping down off her chair and wrenching the half-open bag away from her pokemon. When she did, though, her Pokedex fell out and onto the floor, and she realized it had turned on and lit up.

Frowning, she picked it up and examined the screen.

She gulped back a scream when she read the text.

"I AM BEATRICE," the screen read, reminding Priscilla of the time she read the same words after waking up in the hospital months before, "IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME SINCE WE HAVE LAST SPOKEN."

"I -"

The text cleared, then more text appeared: "GO TO GRANITE CAVE."

"Gr-Granite Cave? In Dewford Town? I'm - I'm going there. Soon. I swear."

"TALK TO THE GHOST OF GRANITE CAVE," Beatrice told her with new text. Priscilla's stomach flip-flopped at the mention of another ghost. "AND YOU MUST NOT DIE."

Priscilla bit her lip and glanced around. Nobody in the Pokemon Center seemed to be paying attention to her, which she felt was a good thing, since she was talking to an inanimate object. And it wasn't even as if she was talking to a phone - she was talking to an encyclopedia. "I'm - I'm not planning on dying."

"DO NOT DIE, SHANNON NGUYEN," the screen told her before it went blank.

Priscilla sighed and turned to face her poochyena, who now amused himself by gnawing on a table leg. "At least she knows my name," she muttered.

"At least who knows your name?"

Priscilla had to bite back a scream before turning around to face the boy behind her. "Who are you?" she demanded in a voice completely unlike what she would have used back in Sinnoh.

The boy in front of her stood an inch taller than her and had light brown skin, blue eyes, and almost blueish dusty-colored hair. "Hey," he said, grinning. "I'm Nate Tran. Who're you?"

"Shannon Nguyen."

"Cool! You're Vietnamese, too?"

Priscilla gave him a strange look. Yes, she was, but Vietnam ceased to exist hundreds of years ago - why did people care about lineage like _that?_

But she decided it must have been a Hoenn thing, because she just smiled and said, "uh, yeah. Vietnamese." Because it was true, after all. That was the beauty of it all - "Nguyen", a common family name in Hoenn, was from the same area as "Vo", her real family name from her Mother's side.

"So, uh, were you headed? You're traveling, right?"

Biting back her urge to scream that she was on a journey _by herself_, since Ichiro told her that Hoennese trainers were all about traveling with other trainers they barely knew, she told the newcomer that she was going to Dewford Town, praying to God that he wasn't going there.

But Nate Tran just grinned and said the words Priscilla hoped never to hear: "Hey, I'm going there, too! Wanna travel together?"

---

Elsewhere in Hoenn, Lyrisa slithered along the ground, having taken the form of a seviper. She and Badr had split up long ago, but she still felt vaguely uneasy about things.

Then she felt herself change into a form that _wasn't_ native to Hoenn - a small purple mammal, one with a split tail and a red jewel on her forehead.

She turned around, her heart bubbling over with joy. "_Mara!_"

Her eyes met dark, cold ones. "_Lyrisa._"

"_You're alright!_" Lyrisa exclaimed. "_I was worried! The others - they've been dying left and right, and -_"

"_And you care too much,_" the other pokemon spat. "_I need you to do something._"

"_What?_"

"_I need you to leave Hoenn._"

Lyrisa's jaw dropped. "_But - but I am needed here,_" she explained, too stunned for words.

"_I am ranked higher than you. You have to listen to me - you know Zenith, Nadir, and Darcy are in no condition to give orders now._"

"_But - why?_"

"_There is somewhere I need you to go,_" Mara said in a cold monotone. "_You claim you love me, and if you do, then I should be able to trust you with this._"

Lyrisa sighed. "_Mara, you know very well that I love you - and why._"

The other pokemon shrugged it off. "_It no longer matters. What does matter is that the little girl you and Badr brought has been getting transmissions from someone named 'Beatrice'._"

"_Beatrice? But she died!_"

"_And yet the transmissions are reaching her,_" Mara explained, "_which means that the Beatrice contacting 'Shannon Nguyen' is not in Sinnoh._"

"_Do you know where she is?_"

Mara's red gem glinted in the sunlight, and Lyrisa saw a green building in her mind. She nodded. "_I will go there._"

She paused, looking at Mara for a moment. When the primary outside haelliad glared back, Lyrisa sighed, bit back her weakness, and teleported away.

Mara shook her head. "_Fool,_" she said, "_your love is misdirected._"

"Now, now, Mara," a human voice said from behind the espeon. "Let's not be cruel to Lyrisa. She is, after all, our very dear friend."

The espeon growled, turning to face the woman behind her. "_Cruel? That was not cruel. You do not know the depths of my cruelty, Virgillia._"

Lady Virgillia, the woman in question, smiled a wide, malicious smile. Her hands were folded in front of her, and her long ball gown seemed out of place in the mountain grasses of Hoenn's Route 114. "Well then," she hissed. "Let the games begin...Shannon Nguyen."

Then she threw back her head, her dark hair cascading through the thin mountain air, and laughed.

---

Author's Note: In my version of the Pokemon world, the countries of our world existed in the past, hence why people can be called "Chinese" or "Vietnamese". However, none of our countries exist in the current world of _Poltergeist's_, though some of the cultural traditions/languages of these countries still do.


	32. Darcy's Pair

Chapter 32: Darcy's Pair

"I hate boats," Nate grumbled.

"Yeah, we know," Priscilla shot back as they both stared out at the open ocean from the deck. "You keep saying that, like, every five minutes."

The other boy just glared at her, though he looked more than a little green around the gills. "I feel seasick."

"Throw up on me and I'll punch you in the face."

Nate laughed. "You? C'mon, Shannon, you don't have the stuff to punch people."

"Wanna bet?"

"Sure. Punch...um...something."

Priscilla shrugged, formed a fist with her right hand, and took a step back. She put her weight onto her forward-moving left foot, then transferred the energy from her step to her fist as she slammed it into Nate's shoulder, just like Vrinda taught her.

"OW! What was that for?" the one-year-older older trainer groaned, rubbing his shoulder.

The girl shrugged. "You said to punch something, so I did."

"You're stupid."

"_You're_ stupid."

"Hey, I'm bored. You wanna have a pokemon battle?"

The little girl laughed. "We're on a boat! How can we have a battle?"

Nate grinned, taking out one of his three pokeballs. When he released it, she saw a blue-and-white bird appear - one that looked just like one of the three pokemon she decided to bring with her on the boat. "Your wingull versus my wingull. They can fight in the air."

Priscilla nodded as she fished out the pokeball containing her own wingull, Winnie. She, like Nate, brought only three pokemon with her for the boat trip across the sea to Dewford Town. Unlike Nate, all her pokemon were fairly new - she had Winnie, Fang, and her shroomish, Bree. Nate, on the other hand, only had one new pokemon: his own wingull, Beelzebub. The other two he brought with him were older and more experienced, and had been with him since he got his pokemon license two years prior - a gulpin named Gohda and a kecleon named Kinzo.

"Okay, Winnie," Priscilla said as her wingull took to the air. "Supersonic!"

---

"So, um, you and me," Nate said as they stepped off the boat at the small port town. "You wanna be rivals?"

Priscilla shrugged. "Whad'ya mean by rivals?"

"You know...we try and beat each other at stuff."

"You already beat me with that wingull battle," Priscilla grumbled. "I don't need to get you to beat me again."

"Aww, come on, it'll be fun! Besides, you wanna get all eight Hoenn badges, right?"

"Right..."

The other trainer grinned, pointing to the left strap on his grayish backpack. On it was a silvery badge, a Stone Badge just like Priscilla's. "This year, I decided that I'd do that, too. We both have one badge, so we're kinda evenly matched. And you have that medicham, right? So even Gohda and Kinzo won't outmatch you right away." When Priscilla shook her head, Nate groaned. "C'moooon, Shannon. Everyone needs a rival! We can travel together this season and then have a big battle at the end. C'mon, c'moooooon."

"Fine," Priscilla spat. "I'll do it. I'll be your stupid rival."

The taller boy grinned madly, which seemed to be a favorite pastime of his. He brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and then kicked off against the sand, running towards the Pokemon Center. "Race you!"

"No fair! You cheated!" Priscilla yelled as she took off after him.

Neither of them noticed the strange shadow that swept over the ferry as they departed. The remaining passengers and the crew shivered a bit, feeling the cold feeling of someone watching them.

---

"So what are we looking for in here?" Nate asked a week and a half later. He and "Shannon" were deep inside the caverns of Granite Cave.

Priscilla frowned, taking out a printed list and holding up a flashlight. "Um, I already caught a makuhita, so I just need...a zubat. Huh," she said, looking over at the other trainer, "I guess the Academy doesn't need that much from here."

The boy shrugged. "Your sponsorship deal is so weird. I got mine from Mauville City Gym."

"Really? Whadya have to do for that?"

"Just take notes on my kecleon and try and catch some electric pokemon, I guess. It's pretty lenient." He grinned, nodding to the glowing lizard standing next to him. "Isn't Kinzo awesome? I taught him flash _and_ I got a TM to teach him thunderbolt from the gym."

"I can't believe they'd give you money even though you don't have any electric pokemon," Priscilla muttered as she kicked a pebble down the dark passageway. "Oh, and yell if you see any zubats."

Nate didn't seem to hear her. "Yeah, and because of his special ability, I didn't have much of a disadvantage against Brawly. That's how he was able to beat those pokemon - you know," he added, elbowing his friend playfully. "Unlike _your_ team_._"

"Shut up!" the girl exclaimed, blushing in embarrassment. The first time she lost a gym battle, and _he_ had to be watching. Why did she agree to that whole "rival" thing, anyway? What was _with_ the Hoennese and their strange obsessions with rivalries and traveling with other people? "I'll beat Brawly next time. That's why I'm trying to find a zubat. You know, so it won't get hurt by fighting in the darkness?"

Indeed, her defeat at the Dewford City Gym had come both as a surprise and a great embarrassment - especially when the Academy camera crew, armed with infrared cameras and movement-sensitive recording devices, decided to interview her afterwards. Then again, equally surprising was the battlefield. Brawly decided to fight inside a maze shrouded in darkness - if she wanted light, she had to provide it via her pokemon. If she couldn't, then she had to fight in the dark...in a maze...

She hadn't even seen her taillow crash into that wall after getting nailed by his makuhita. It all happened so quickly...

"Yeah, like a little blue bat's gonna - hey! I see some!" Nate hissed, halting mid-taunt to grab Priscilla's arm and point up towards the ceiling. "They're up there!"

"Thanks," she whispered back, nudging the bird on her shoulder. "Winnie, you can see them, right?"

The wingull cooed back softly in a tone that Priscilla assumed meant "yes".

"Good. Blast 'em away with a water gun - maybe one will fall to the ground where Fang can get it," she added, taking out Fang's pokeball and releasing him behind her, careful to shield as much of the white flash with her body as she could. (Only after did she realize that shielding the flash was pointless, since zubats were blind.)

The wingull took to the air and opened her beak, spitting out a stream of water at the group of bats clinging to the cavern ceiling. Priscilla and Nate covered their heads as the water bounced back and dripped down - but neither of them missed the sound of a screeching zubat hitting the ground with a thud.

Fang didn't miss it, either. Eager to chase and bite, he lunged towards the bat, chomping down on its wing before it could take to the air again. He threw it towards the cave wall, and once Priscilla heard the nasty crunch of the zubat's wing crumbling underneath it, she took out a pokeball and tossed - and missed.

"Way to completely miss," Nate jeered.

"Shut up. It's dark."

Luckily, the next one hit right on target, sucking the zubat up and locking it in. Fang wagged his tail and growled happily, glad to have contributed to the defeat of yet another pokemon. Winnie, on the other hand, just nudged Priscilla's shoulder with her beak once she landed, motioning to her trainer that she didn't want to stay in the cave anymore.

After Priscilla returned Winnie and Fang (since he liked to run after anything that moved, and she didn't want to lose him in the caves), Nate and Kinzo turned to leave. Priscilla took a step to follow, but then stopped.

"Aren't you coming?" Nate asked, clearly confused. His kecleon raised a single eyebrow and crossed his arms, impatient for his trainer's rival to follow.

"Um...I think there's something else I gotta do," she said slowly, checking the list of pokemon she was supposed to capture a second time. But she had already captured the makuhita and zubat that the Academy wanted - she really didn't have to do anything else in the caves.

Except...

"Yeah, actually," Priscilla added, folding up the list so Nate wouldn't catch her lie. "I have to capture one other pokemon here - sorry!"

"Which one? We can help ya find it."

"Um, it's...it's...a mawile." She vaguely remembered seeing a strange pokemon in the Pokemon Center with an extra head with a huge jaw, and she remembered its trainer calling it a "mawile" and saying how he caught her in the Cave. "I gotta catch a mawile."

Nate frowned, crossing his arms and mirroring his starter pokemon's pose. "Man, those are rough. We didn't even see any so far."

"S-sorry," Priscilla said, surprised that she was stuttering again. She hadn't stuttered since...well, since anybody had called her "Priscilla Vo", and that had been a fairly long time ago. "B-but I really have to g-go and catch a mawile now."

Kinzo groaned and smacked his forehead, muttering something that Priscilla couldn't understand. But his trainer merely shrugged and took a step towards her, motioning for Kinzo to follow. "Well, we'll come with. I mean, how else are ya gonna find one? You don't have a pokemon that knows flash."

Priscilla smiled a bit, feeling a little sheepish that Nate bought her lie so easily. "Um, y-yeah. Sounds great!"

So they resumed walking deeper and deeper into the caves, Nate searching for a two-headed steel-type while Priscilla looked for something else - "the ghost of Granite Cave", as Beatrice told her in her latest transmission to Priscilla's Pokedex.

But they didn't walk for very long - as soon as they entered a large cavern, all three heard a light hissing sound. A second later it grew louder, and another second later, louder still.

Priscilla only had enough time to grab one of her pokemon's pokeballs before she felt herself falling off a slight cliff into a dark, jellylike substance below. She looked up as she fell to see Nate stretched a hand down towards her, but then he disappeared, she closed her eyes in fear, and then she landed on cold stone.

Half-expecting to see the horrible Distortion World around her, she opened her eyes and looked around.

Luckily, the Distortion World _wasn't_ what she saw all around her - she just saw more of the same dark caverns that made up Granite Cave. Sighing with relief, she stood and brushed herself off, muttering, "go with the flow" over and over to herself.

"_I'm sorry? I didn't quite catch that._"

Priscilla froze, clutching the filled pokeball so hard that her knuckles turned white. "Who - who said that?"

"_It is I, a ghost of Granite Cave._"

The girl shuddered, unable to hold in the reaction to finding herself in the company of another ghost. She could only pray that this one wouldn't be anything like Darcy. "I - I need to t-talk to you, I think. Um, do - do you know B-Beatrice?"

The ghost didn't answer for a while, and then he asked: "_Are you Priscilla Vo?_"

"I - my name - no, it's not. It's, um, it's Shannon Nguyen. I'm - I'm Shannon Nguyen."

"_Heh,_" the ghost hissed, and Priscilla could have sworn she heard a series of scuttling footsteps getting closer and closer. "_Is that what Celest told you to tell me? Or was it Indira? I know you came into contact with them._"

Priscilla gulped. Who had told her not to trust others? Was it Celest? Indira? _Darcy?_ She couldn't remember... "N-no, I - I mean, I -"

"_Are you the one with the grimoire?_" he asked, sounding almost as if he was right above her. Priscilla swung her head up and almost fainted when she saw two hard-cut, light blue sapphires staring down at her, a familiar red gem and sickeningly toothy grin underneath. "_If you have the grimoire, then you are Priscilla Vo. If you have the grimoire, then you wouldn't have come all the way out here to meet me if you didn't want my help. Now then, I'll ask you again and give you one more chance to answer correctly. Are you Priscilla Vo?_"

"Y-yes," Priscilla whispered. "I'm - I'm Priscilla Vo. Of - of Pastoria City, in S-Sinnoh."

"_Aaah,_" the ghost replied, his smile growing wider by the second. "_Well then, Priscilla Vo, I am Pentyl, originally third of the outsides._" Priscilla watched as the gems and smile dropped down from the low ceiling and onto the floor, and she could now see his small, hunched-over, spiky purple body. "_Do you have the grimoire with you?_"

She felt herself sit down next to the small ghost and nod. "Y-yes, I have it."

"_Take it out._"

"O-okay," she said weakly, feeling herself twist around to pull the book out of her bag. Her hands placed the book on the ground with a small "here it is" from her voice.

The little ghost nodded, his tiny, clawlike purple hands quickly flipping through the pages. "_Yes, yes, yes...it's all here. And,_" he said with glee as he reached the all-important list page, "_the lists are updated. Well, now, this is interesting,_" he added as his blue-gem eyes took in the names and strikethroughs. "_Indira died. I assume she died helping you get that substance in your bag._"

Priscilla's throat tightened as she remembered the sunset. She still had it inside the camping mug, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic wrap to prevent any sort of leak - for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to digitize it and put it inside an item capsule.

"_Interesting, interesting. And if Vael is dead, then Nadir can't live much longer. Neither can Hallas due to Georgiana's death - but I heard he was sick, so he won't be long now! Heheh, so interesting._" He turned his grinning head to face Priscilla. "_You know about the pairs, right?_"

"Th-that if one number dies, then the s-same number in the other list dies, too, right?"

The diminutive ghost grinned even wider, reminding Priscilla much too much of Darcy's evil smiles. "_Yeeeessss. Well, then, I am very lucky that Darcy is still alive!_"

Priscilla felt a wave of nausea flow through her body as she heard someone mention Darcy's name aloud for the first time in months. "You - you're Darcy's -"

"_Her pair? Yeeeessss, little girl, I am. Hah, but I never had her curse - nor her power, but if Mara does not make it through this, then I won't have to worry about power. I already took Vael's after all._"

Choosing to ignore his gleeful little bit about taking power from a dead haelliad and hoping the other died, Priscilla asked: "D-Darcy had a curse?"

The ghost laughed. "_Of course, of course! So much pain - so much paaaaiiiin! But she loves it - the pain. It hurts her, but that's what she turns into power. Heheheh, isn't it lovely to be a ghost?_"

"N-no...I -"

"_Don't feel bad, little girl. Darcy is not a nice person. She lies, cheats, steals, and above all, manipulates others. But that is the nature of a ghost, isn't it?_" he added cheerfully, waving his hand to beckon Priscilla closer. "_However, I am going to be truthful to you know. Completely honest, in fact, because I have more to gain by helping you now. You have Darcy to thank for that - heheh, but don't blame me if this information eventually kills you._"

"Why would it kill me?" Priscilla asked, even though she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer.

Pentyl just grinned. "_Oh, you will find out soon enough. Especially if you fail to get out of Darcy's grasp!_"

"I am out of her grasp!" the girl exclaimed, beginning to feel paranoid. What if she wasn't? No, no, she _had_ to have been. Darcy didn't control her. "She got into one of my dreams, but Crystal's gengar got her out! She - she can't -"

"_Ah, so you got another ghost to get you out? Silly little girl, trusting ghosts,_" he hissed happily. "_Look at this page - do you see a line through her name?_" He pointed to the third item on the second list, and Priscilla shook her head, as there was no line through it. "_As long as she is still alive and in enough pain, she will forever hunt you down. Trust me - heh - when I say that she is most certainly not your friend, and never will be._"

"How do I get rid of her? I hate her - she's not my friend."

"_Find a way to kill her,_" Pentyl said with a shrug. "_Although you must know, I cannot allow you to do that. While I do not care about her at a personal level, if she dies, then I cannot live. But you shouldn't worry,_" he added in a sickly sweet voice. "_After all, I doubt a little girl like you has caused the great Darcy to feel any pain._"

Priscilla shivered as she remembered their brief time in the Distortion World together. She remembered how she tricked Darcy into turning into a small child, then used her weak, juvenile body to her advantage when kicking her in the stomach.

Darcy had doubled over, nearly falling off the floating red rock. There was no _way_ that hadn't caused her any pain.

"_But there's no use worrying about that now, is there?_" Pentyl whispered, causing Priscilla to shiver again. "_Because I have information for you. And you needn't worry about that enemy of ours finding us here - I have locked us in. Nothing can find me in this chamber unless I want them to._" He grinned madly, like a twisted version of Nate. "_I used Vael's power to do that. Isn't it lovely?_"

Hoping he wouldn't go into detail, Priscilla nodded.

Pentyl seemed satisfied enough with her response. "_Now then, would you like to know who the haelliads are? You are finding them one by one, aren't you?_"

"Y-yes..."

"_Heh. I pity the ones you find. But I will tell you what to look for, in any case. First, the dead, because we must honor the dead, right? Heheheheheheh..._" He pointed to the second line in the first list. "_Second of the outsides, Vael, was a golduck. Fourth of the outsides, Indira, was a persian - but you knew that, didn't you? Seventh of the outsides, Celest, was a starmie - though I'm sure you knew that, too. Eighth of the ousdies, Hamako, was an ampharos. Ninth of the outsides, Umiou, was a slowking. As for the deceased insides..._"

Priscilla watched as he brought his hand over to the other list, though she saw with dismay that he skipped the first three. Hopefully, she thought, he would later go back and tell her what Zenith was.

"_Fourth of the insides, Shyama, was a copy of Shaymin. Sixth of the insides, Georgiana, was a copy of Cresselia._"

Priscilla frowned as he mentioned Cresselia - Cresselia was a good pokemon, and she helped people have good dreams. When she overheard that one conversation between Darcy and Lyrisa, they mentioned Georgiana and made it sound like she had been a friend of Darcy's. But how could something like a Cresselia copy have helped out someone so horrible as Darcy?

"_Seventh of the insides,_" Pentyl continued, not noticing Priscilla's confused facial expressions whatsoever, "_Hallam, was a copy of Heatran. Eighth of the insides, Farran, was a copy of Dialga. Ninth of the insides, Kynaston, was a copy of Articuno. Twelfth of the insides, Beatrice..._"

The little girl held her breath, waiting to hear what Beatrice had been a copy of. Obviously she wasn't anything that had been mentioned already - but...

But Pentyl merely grinned. "_Well, I shouldn't tell you too much, should I?_" With that, the human girl next to him couldn't help but groan. The little ghost laughed. "_No use telling you what Beatrice was - that might help you more than you need._"

"What - what about the others? The ones who are, um, still alive?" Priscilla asked, hoping that even though Pentyl wouldn't tell her about Beatrice, he might tell her what to look for when she eventually reached Evergrande City.

"_Third of the insides, Darcy, is a copy of Giratina._"

"I knew that! I _saw_ that - it was horrible! And I know that Badr's Suicune and Lyrisa's Mew, too. Tell me about stuff I _don't_ know."

Pentyl shrugged. "_I, third of the outsides, am a sableye._" He grinned when he saw Priscilla's frustrated expression. "_You didn't say you knew that._"

"Well," she grumbled, "I didn't...what about him?" she asked, pointing to the first in the insides list. "Zenith. What's he?"

She only received a grin, not an answer.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"_Because I do not wish to tell you more than is currently useful. Being ignorant can sometimes work to your advantage. But,_" he added, "_you might like to know._" He pointed to the fifth item in the other list. "_Nasu,_" he slid is finger down one, "_and Hallas are both in the sea routes in the eastern half of this region. They are both pokemon that can be found in that area. If you run into trouble there - and I can almost guarantee that you will - make sure to look for red gems to help you. Nasu lives near the top of the sea, and Hallas, the bottom._"

Biting back the urge to say something more demanding, Priscilla merely said, "that doesn't seem that helpful."

"_Sleep on it, then,_" Pentyl only said. "_Haven't your dreams been easily seen and manipulated by others? Perhaps your dreams will tell you more than I have. For example,_" he said, pointing over to a dark corner. "_I have caught something in my web you might not want to leave this cave without._"

Stepping over to the corner, Priscilla saw a flash of silver that she had seen before. "F-from my dream? But it's so - so tiny!"

"_Tiny things can grow into bigger things, little girl. After all, didn't you start all this just by looking around Sinnoh for a way to help your mother?_"

Priscilla turned around to look at the sableye, but she only saw darkness - and her book, lying on the floor. She glanced back down at her feet to see the little grey-and-black pokemon staring up at her with big blue eyes, looking slightly overwhelmed. "Um, hi."

The little pokemon nodded slightly.

"Oh - do you understand me?"

The little pokemon paused, then nodded.

"Um...I was gonna battle you," Priscilla said, holding up the pokeball in her hand.

Below her, the smaller pokemon glared at her, hardening up his shell.

Once she let Fang out, though, the little thing lost its brave exterior, even though Fang's attacks weren't that effective.

Priscilla waited for it to flinch when she threw the pokeball - it was a successful capture. "I'm gonna call him Steel, okay?" she asked her poochyena. The dog didn't seem to hear her, because he was busy chasing his tail.

Sighing, Priscilla went over to grab her book and motioned for Fang to follow. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

---

"I can't believe we both got lost in that stupid cave for three hours," Nate groaned as he and Priscilla sat down to eat dinner in the Pokemon Center cafeteria. "And you didn't even get a mawile! All you got was a stupid aron."

"Yeah, um, I guess I misread the list," Priscilla said as she bit into a freshly baked piece of naan. She mostly lived off plain or mild naan while in Dewford Town, after discovering that most of the food was extremely spicy. "So an aron is fine. We don't have to go back."

Nate peered down at the two pokemon Priscilla had out - her poochyena and the aron in question. "So you're gonna keep him, Shannon?"

She nodded, exchanging a glance with the little steel-type. "Yeah. Steel and I - I think we gotta stick together."

Steel looked up at her with his big blue eyes for a minute, and Priscilla could have sworn she heard him ask why. But then he went back to eating his pokemon food, and she turned back to eat her naan, neither of them saying anything else to each other. Nate and so-called Shannon ended up spending the rest of the evening hanging out, and not once was anything related to any dreams brought up within Priscilla's team.

Not until that night, when she had another dream -

One that, for once, didn't seem to involve Darcy.

When she woke up in the morning, Priscilla didn't even remember that much of it.

Only that she saw her old team - Jet, Tor, Blizzard, and Vrinda - lying on the ground, dead, strewn with bullet holes.

---

Author's Note: To those who guessed that Steel was a lairon, you were correct. Somebody guessed he was a poochyena - which I found funny, considering I had already planned for Fang to be Priscilla's "new starter".


	33. Extra Text

Chapter 33: Extra Text

"What do you _mean_ you don't think Mauville City Gym'll be open when we get there?" Priscilla yelled.

Nate shrugged, leaning against the railing of yet another ferry - this time from Dewford Town to Slateport City. "It's only open in the summer. By the time we get there, it could be closed for the season - Wattson's half into retirement, so he doesn't like taking off-season challengers."

Priscilla groaned. Back in Sinnoh, gyms stayed open year round, and the worst you had to do on the off-season was just make an appointment a bit in advance instead of just dropping in. Here in Hoenn, however, gyms shut down during the off-season, which pretty much started anywhere from August to October, depending on the mood of the gym, and ended any time the gym leader felt like it was "summery" enough.

"Hey, don't worry, Shannon," Nate said, patting her on the shoulder in a half-serious, half-jokingly-patronizing manner. "Just train up during the off-season and crush him in the spring. And hey, I can't get the badge, either, so we're even."

Next to him, Gohda the gulpin nodded his agreement. During the past few months that "Shannon Nguyen" had traveled with Nate Tran and his team, she learned that Gohda was a really good listener. Nate usually let his pokemon out whenever he had a chance, and Priscilla almost always ended up talking to Gohda.

For some reason, she found it easier to connect with the strange purple blob than with her own pokemon, or even with Nate. Nate was good for quick practice battles, psyching her up, giving her a goal to match, or for stress-releasing banter. But when she needed to talk about missing her mom, Nate just didn't _get_ it. He could just run on home to Mauville City and say hi to his parents - his whole _family_, including a five-year-old little brother in addition to both his birth parents. And, in fact, that was what they were doing. Now that July had turned to August, Nate was preparing to go back home for the off-season, where he would attend middle school.

But Priscilla couldn't do that. Even though she told everyone she was from Lilycove City, what would she do if she went there until April, when the training sponsorship from the Academy would kick in again? Her mother was back in Sinnoh, effectively frozen in time for the next four years.

That, and she didn't even have a family like Nate's to go home to. She just had her mom, and while she always figured her mom (and her mom's pokemon, before they got released) was enough. Hearing Nate talk about his father and little brother began to wear her down, though. Her mother told her that her father lived far away, and that they never got married.

Priscilla told everyone at school that her dad died, though she figured her friends' parents knew more of the real story - but how could she say anything else? Even saying that her parents divorced would look bad, seeing as the Church of the Legends, Sinnoh's primary theological power, looked down on it.

It was a misunderstanding, her mother said. But even taking that into account, that would have meant that her mother was a _slut._

But Priscilla didn't blame her mother. Her mother wasn't a slut. Obviously, her father was the one who messed everything up. He didn't tell Amelia Vo that he was already married, and then when Amelia got pregnant, he ran away.

Her father's fault.

End of story.

Gohda sort of...understood. He saw that Priscilla looked uncomfortable when Nate talked so glowingly about his father, and he always made sure to slide over to Priscilla and pat her on the knee. When Nate went to sleep, usually letting his pokemon stay out of their pokeballs, sometimes Priscilla would whisper all her problems to the gulpin. Even in the Pokemon Centers, where they let trainers choose their rooms - Priscilla thought this was highly improper, but Nate thought it was weird _not_ to sleep in a room together, and apparently boys and girls in Hoenn were allowed to do that - Priscilla and Gohda would start talking.

Sometimes Priscilla felt like she understood Gohda's soft, slippery speech, too. He grew up as a wild gulpin outside of Mauville City, and his father got captured by a different trainer when he was young. It was a bit of a problem, too, since baby gulpins were usually raised by both their parents. He really missed his mother and little sister, too, but he was fine being a trainer's pokemon, even though he thought Nate was a bit rambunctious.

He even understood when Priscilla told him she felt guilty that she understood some of what he said when she couldn't understand her own pokemon.

She didn't know what he said after that, but she thought it was something along the lines of "give it time".

But maybe that was just her imagining Hoenn-type advice.

"Shannon?"

"Huh - wha?" Jolting herself out of her deep thinking, she snapped her head back up to look at the brown-haired boy. "What?"

"You were spacing out."

"Yeah..." She glanced down at Gohda, who was chuckling a little bit. "Shut up, Gohda."

Nate rolled his eyes. "Why're you and Gohda so buddy-buddy all the time?"

Gohda smiled placidly, staring up at his trainer with empty eyes, but Priscilla told him, "Gohda likes me better."

Which then meant the peaceful gulpin had to settle another playful argument, patting both trainers on their knees with his slimy hands in order to make them calm down.

---

A few days later, Priscilla sat on the beach with Fang and Swift, her taillow. The Academy had expressed interest in having her wingull to use in training classes, so Priscilla had to say goodbye to Winnie and replace her with a different bird, since Priscilla liked having a bird with her.

Swift, on the other hand, didn't seem so crazy about her. He preferred to stay in tree branches and on top of other people's umbrellas rather than land on his trainer's shoulder, like Winnie would have done. Priscilla resented the bird for not taking a quick liking to her, but she shrugged it off. At least Fang liked her.

Then again, she thought as she watched the waves splash up on the sandy Slateport beach, Fang seemed to like everyone. Sure, he acted very loyal when she wanted him to come or go, but his natural wariness and slight hostility towards strangers wore off the second they wanted to pet him or play fetch.

Which was what he was doing at that moment. A local girl with an inner tube and a marill managed to snag him away with a game of "fetch the tennis ball".

Priscilla would have liked to talk to _someone_, but Nate wanted to explore the city, having apparently outgrown the beaches around Slateport City "a billion years ago". That meant that he took Kinzo, Gohda, and Beelzebub with him, too. While it made sense for him to take his team, Priscilla wondered if they wouldn't have been just as happy to go to the beach instead of explore - after all, Priscilla liked to think that Gohda liked her better, and Beelzebub was a seafaring wingull.

But no.

She was alone, thanks to her taillow's interest in the skies and her poochyena's interest in chasing things.

"I'm bored," she called, glancing over to see if either Swift or Fang noticed. Fang didn't seem to hear her at all and Swift seemed to ignore her. "Swift, if you don't come play with me, I'm gonna switch you out for someone else."

The bird gave her a haughty beak-grin and went back to preening his feathers atop a snoozing old woman's umbrella.

Priscilla sighed. "What about if I battle with you?" she asked the taillow. He seemed to perk up at this, and Priscilla glanced around. "Maybe in the water..." She stood up, took off her shoes, and splashed into the water, hearing Swift take to the air and circle around her from above.

"Hey! You!" Priscilla turned to see a young man in a lifeguard chair glaring down at her. "Watch out for tentacool."

The little Sinnohan girl just grinned. "I am watching out for tentacools."

"You mean tentacool," he muttered before leaning back against his chair. "Just be careful."

She wanted to smack the guard for being a grammar policeman, but Crystal explained that a lot of the Hoennese didn't add an "s" onto the ends of plurals for pokemon. Priscilla thought it sounded stupid.

But she couldn't think about it too much, since she saw Swift dive down into the water only a second later. Grinning, she splashed farther into the ocean's edge.

When she saw the little tentacles shoot up to attempt a wrap attack on Swift, she wanted to laugh and cheer. A tentacool! She never got this excited about them in Sinnoh, but seeing one here, in the warm waters of Hoenn, trying in vain to attack her airborne swallow...

"Wing attack!" Priscilla ordered, maximizing the empty pokeball in her hand. When she saw Swift's wing collide with the jellylike body of the tentacool, briefly forcing it out of the water, she frowned.

It had a red jewel on its head...

And it was made of jelly.

Red jewel - that was like the requirement for an outside haelliad.

And the jelly body - that was like her dream.

"Pokeball, go!" she yelled, ignoring the cliche. The tentacool disappeared as the pokeball hit square on its red, gem-like forehead.

Swift chirped from the air as Priscilla waded through the salty waves to pick up the sinking pokeball. She held it up, wiping it off.

"Hey, Swift?" she said, still staring at the pokeball. "D'you think tentacools and tentacruels usually stay near the top of the ocean?"

The bird rolled his eyes, chirped what sounded to Priscilla like a "no _duh_", and flew back to his perch on the old lady's umbrella.

---

_Rustboro City Gym Academy Blogs:_

_Field Trainers:_

_Shannon Nguyen_

_Date: March 29_

_Subject: The season is almost here! Yay! :) :)_

_Hey everyone! It's me, Shannon! I'm super excited to do another year of blogging and traveling and letting everyone know how I'm doing._

_Anyway, I didn't blog much over the off-season because...haha, you know! Nothing much happens during the off-season. That's not really true, though, because I did a lot. I actually went to school at RCGA with all of you, and had tons of fun. (And I turned twelve years old!!! YAYYYYY!) I also trained a lot, and got to see some of you guys training pokemon I caught. Shout out to my BFFs Haley and Emma, who passed their exams with Swift (tallow) and Casper (dustox that I caught as a cascoon). And yay for everyone who won battles with pokemon I caught._

_So I'm getting ready to go out and travel again, so I guess I should let you guys know how I'm doing. I'm going to challenge Mauville City Gym next, and I'm going to do it with Steel (lairon - he evolved last week! Steel, I love you!), Rocker (geodude), and Sandy (sandshrew). I'm probably going to use Steel the most...I passed my spring school exam with him, so I guess we're pretty good together._

_If you guys are wondering what other pokemon I'm gonna bring with me, I'll probably bring Fang (poochyena) a couple times, but he loves hanging out in Rustboro City with you guys, so I dunno! Rocker and I don't really get along so much, so I probably will send him back, and I JUST caught Sandy, so I dunno about her. I really wanna train Bree (shroomish) since she's cute and I love her dancing. Maybe Swift (taillow) and Sting (tentacool), too. And of course I really want to get Lakshmi, my starter/medicham, with me again, but she might be TOO powerful. Haha!_

_After I get the Mauville badge, I'm definitely going up north to challenge Flannery. Yep. That's gonna be my summer, haha. Sooooo yeah, that's it. Talk to you again after I leave! :)_

"Look good?" Priscilla asked, staring back up at the medicham looking over her shoulder.

"_Eh, it looks okay, I guess,_" Vrinda replied, shrugging. "_Dontcha think Jessica's gonna be mad if you don't mention her, though? I thought she was a better friend to you than Emma._"

Priscilla frowned. She always thought of Emma and Haley as her best friends, with Jessica as the girl she hung out with during class due to the proximity of their desks. "Okay..."

She tapped a few keys and edited the original sentence near the beginning to read:

_Shout out to my BFFs Haley, Emma, and Jessica, who passed their exams with Swift (tallow) Casper (dustox that I caught as a cascoon) and Winnie (wingull)._

"Now?"

"_You forgot some commas. Oh, and you forgot the 'i' in 'taillow'._"

"Uggghhh."

_Shout out to my BFFs Emma, Haley, and Jessica, who passed their exams with Swift (taillow), Casper (dustox that I caught as a cascoon), and Winnie (wingull)._

"Now is it okay?"

"_Fine...for a twelve-year-old._"

"Shut uuup, Lakshmi," Priscilla said, clicking on the "post" button. "I can always edit it later."

The medicham shrugged. "_C'mon. We gotta get some training in YOU before you leave._"

Priscilla groaned. "Again? We did punching practice _all day_ yesterday. I'm tired."

"_Quit whining. I want to go over kicks and pressure points. Oh, and let's do some meditation, too. Maybe you should train that makuhita or catch a machop and have them train you so -_"

"Okay, okay! Jeez, I'll learn more fighting stuff. Let's go." The girl dragged her medicham out of the lobby in the main building of the Rustboro City Gym Academy, leading her towards a grassy lawn out front.

Vrinda shrugged as they stood apart in palms-together poses, taking deep breaths before they went through their practice routines. "_I just want to continue training you to fight. Remember what I said a year ago?_"

"That the reason I was so shy and scared all the time was because I had no way of defending myself against crazy ghosts?" Priscilla muttered between deep breaths.

"_Well, yeah,_" Vrinda replied as she sent a soft punch towards her trainer, which was immediately pushed away in an elementary block. "_You're not so bad at training pokemon, but you suck at training yourself. You still do. I told you to practice that block, and it's still sloppy._"

"I was studying," the girl grunted as she tried to kick her pokemon in the stomach, but Vrinda dodged easily. "And trying to - hiyahh! - train Steel and - ow! - Rocker and Sandy so - haahhh! - Nate doesn't beat Wattson first."

Vrinda jumped forward, snatching up Priscilla's hands and bringing them around her back. "_You also spent all year talking to Nate on the Internet. I didn't think you'd actually get sucked up into this whole 'rivalry' fad. Oh - and I just won._"

"Mercy," the girl grumbled begrudgingly, stretching her arms when Vrinda released them. "And shut up about conforming to Hoenn - I mean, it's what they DO here. They have rivalries. It's stupid, but I can't just let Nate beat me to getting all the badges. Plus," she added, shrugging, "he's my friend. We travel together. Which is another thing that I have to do here because the Hoennese do it, so don't _say_ anything."

The medicham shrugged. "_Whatever. But you're not forgetting about Sinnoh, right?_"

Priscilla's eyes widened in shock. "Of course not! How could I forget?"

"_Because you haven't done one thing this whole school session about trying to figure out what's going on with that book,_" Vrinda said, adding extra emphasis to "book" to include everything else wrapped up in it. "_All you did was act like a normal kid._"

"I - I am a normal kid!"

"_Riiiiiiight. Just like my name is Lakshmi._" Before Priscilla could say anything, Vrinda demonstrated a high kick to the air. "_Now shut up and let's work on kicks._"

---

"I can't believe you leave tomorrow, Shannon," a blue-haired girl whined from across the room.

Blue hair was another thing Priscilla had to get used to in Hoenn. But after living in the same room as Haley Fischman, one of the girls at the Academy that had become one of Priscilla's best friends, blue hair seemed mundane.

"I know," Priscilla said in the same whining tone, stuffing another item ball into her bag, her hand brushing up against the reinforced lidded cup containing the liquid sunset. Every night after that, Priscilla watched each sunset with a sort of muted curiosity - even though she had _the sunset_ in a cup, nothing seemed to change in the sunsets following. Well, everything except the color, but that was just because sunsets looked yellower in Hoenn than they did in Johto or Sinnoh. "It's _so_ crazy."

"I'm gonna comment on, like, every single one of your blog posts," Haley said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And I'm gonna train Swift soooooo much. You won't even recognize him."

Priscilla looked up to see the taillow she caught chirping his agreement from his spot on the wiry blue-haired girl's shoulder. She resented Haley a little bit for bonding so quickly with Swift, but hey, it wasn't like it was her fault. Swift just gelled with Haley better than he did with Priscilla, and that was a lot more than she could say about some of the _other_ pokemon she caught. Some of them couldn't stand to be within ten feet of Priscilla (another weird thing about Hoenn - measurement. Why couldn't they have used meters like normal people?). At least Swift got along better with Priscilla after bonding with Haley.

That, and Haley was Priscilla's new best friend (and roommate). She couldn't hate Haley. That would be like hating Vrinda or Fang or...

Or Jet.

She missed Jet. The only time she saw him (and Blizzard) during the past year was when Ichiro came to visit over the winter holiday. While Blizzard seemed happy to see her, almost begging for Priscilla to hug him and play with him in the snow he created, Jet just buzzed a simple greeting.

Now that Priscilla had grown as a pokemon trainer and capturer, she began to see more of Jet in Swift. Swift liked Priscilla well enough, but he liked other people better. He'd work with her when he had to, but more out of obligation or a common goal than anything personal.

It scared her to think that her "best pokemon friend" wasn't actually much of a friend at all.

"You gotta reply to my comments," Haley exclaimed, pulling Priscilla out of her deep thought. "I'm gonna miss you."

"I'll reply to all of your comments," Priscilla replied, running over to throw her arms around the other girl. "I'll tell you everything. Promise. And then when we see each other again, we can hang out like normal. We gotta go to Skypark and ride the roller coasters."

"And we totally have to go hiking on Route 115 and Meteor Falls. Backpacking. You know - when we're older?" Haley said, her voice muffled on Priscilla's shoulder. "We're gonna be best friends _forever._ And roomies. _Forever._"

"We're twelve, Haley. I can't think past, like, when I'm fifteen."

---

A week later, Priscilla found herself camped out right outside Mauville, a little bit to the east. She could have easily kept walking to the end of Route 117, but it was such a pleasant evening, and she could better enjoy it out in the grassy open than in the city.

Hoenn was starting to rub off on her, she realized, leaning back against the hard shell of her lairon, Steel. He grunted and shifted his weight before closing his eyes again, telling her to stop moving.

Priscilla chuckled and looked up at the stars. They weren't as beautiful as they were closer to Verdanturf, since the lights from nearby Mauville City stained the sky too much, but they were still gorgeous.

Gorgeous like little diamonds scattered on an immense darkness...

But it was a beautiful darkness, Priscilla thought, not a scary one. Dark like how Fang was a dark-type, and he was really sweet (when he wasn't trying to chase something and play rough).

If anything, dark-types were the nice ones. It was the _ghosts_ Priscilla still hated.

They were like ugly darkness, or scary darkness. They were like...Darcy. Darcy and the Distortion World.

Priscilla frowned - what did Vrinda mean when she said Priscilla hadn't been trying to understand the book more? She'd been busy! She'd been busy with school and training to be ready for the season and _having a life._

But...

Priscilla sat up, causing Steel to grunt and complain about her being restless. "I'm gonna do some reading, okay?"

"_Whatever,_" Steel mumbled sleepily. Like Gohda the summer before, Priscilla had found Steel's speech to be fairly easy to comprehend after enough late nights talking to him. Back when he had been a more portable aron, she took him with her to the library and outside on walks near the hills, pouring some of her thoughts and worries into him like she had with Nate's gulpin.

For some reason, opening herself up to Steel made it easier for her to understand Steel when she listened to him.

It came sort of gradually, but then she heard Steel telling her that he felt like he was too fat, like the steel armor around his body was too thin, and that he got too tired too quickly when fighting. That, and that he was having trouble making friends with other pokemon.

Then she found herself telling him that he had to like himself first, and that he was a wonderful pokemon and an awesome fighter. She and Steel then looked at each other in shock, realizing that was the first time they'd actually had a real conversation.

It wasn't long after that she started using him in more battles than Fang, who she felt obligated to use because he was her "Hoenn starter".

Priscilla reached over from her spot next to Steel and pulled out her Pokedex and the grimoire. Turning the Pokedex on and adjusting the backlight so that she could read but not be blinded, she scanned in a page of the grimoire - not the list page, but the first page.

And she began to read:

_This is the grimoire of the haelliads, the story of whom is penned by Umiou, currently ninth of the outsides._

_We are a special group of beings designed to keep balance between worlds. I, Umiou, regret to say I do not know much of the "why" behind it, but I can say that I have been a part of setting up the structure of the outsides. This book has been filled with blank pages for far too long, and something this powerful should not be blank._

_I am directly responsible for the recruitment of 1-Mara, 2-Vael, 4-Indira, 5-Nasu, and 8-Hamako of the outsides, as well as having had a hand in finding 6-Hallas and 7-Celest. 3-Pentyl, 10-Uxie, 11-Azelf, 12-Mesprit, and all of the insides were appointed before I was._

_Perhaps the best use of these blank pages would be to explain as much of our reason to be here as I can. I should start then, with what I know of the insides, as they were before me._

_The insides came from inside the dark world, called "The Distortion World" or "The Torn World" by some. The dark world is destructive by nature, and, if unchecked, could destroy the very fabric of the world we are in. I do not know if that is exactly why we are here, but the insides could not keep balance without an equal and opposite force acting as well, hence the outsides._

_Much of my knowledge comes after our creation. While the insides were born from the dark world, the outsides had to be recruited. The psychics making up the bottom three rungs of our ladder and Pentyl, the ghost of the south, were the first appointed. I came after, recruited because of my red gem and my abilities to see who would become important to us. That was how I found those who needed to be found and created those who needed to be created in order for recruitment._

_Our hierarchy is set up to have "primaries" in the first positions and "anchors" in the final positions, with ten in between in each set. The primaries contain the most power while the anchors keep balance. Therefore, Zenith and Mara are primaries while Beatrice and Mesprit are anchors. While the primaries are the most powerful and, therefore, are our leaders, the anchors keep us rooted and, therefore, are the most important._

_While I agree with everything Beatrice's appointment stands for - and, as she is an inside, I assume she was born to be the anchor - I do not understand why the anchor for the outsides is Mesprit. Anchoring the fate of the world to emotions does not seem proper, especially when we are trained to ignore emotions that could interfere with our ability to keep balance. Why not bravery or knowledge?_

_As long as all of us live, bringing the universe with us, all will be well._

_However, if every piece to the puzzle is not created - if I or any one of us has missed the chance to create a needed key when it did not create itself - then I fear for everything. I fear for my life and the well-being of those around me._

_It is our job to pull strings that need to be pulled. That is the role of the haelliad._

Priscilla looked up at the stars.

"Pulling strings..."

She knew she heard one of the haelliads say something about pulling strings before. She wanted to say it was Darcy, but she didn't know.

Had Darcy been pulling strings? If Umiou's writing was correct, then they probably _all_ had been pulling strings.

Unconsciously, Priscilla's hand went to her shoulder blades, feeling around for strings as if she were a marionette. If Darcy was pulling strings, then Priscilla _had_ to be attached to them.

Ghosts didn't like people, after all. They were too evil to like people.

They liked puppets, and that's what people were to them. Just puppets.

---

Crystal sighed, looking at the egg sitting on her table in her Blackthorn City home yet another time. She frequently took it out to examine when she had extra time - and more and more, it seemed, she made the extra time to look at the egg. Inside the egg _had_ to be a cyndaquil, as its mother was a typhlosion as well as its father, but...

"A cyndaquil shouldn't take this long to hatch," she muttered, brushing her hand along the shell. "What's wrong with you, little guy?"

"_Maybe it needs a better hatcher,_" Mega, Crystal's meganium, offered from his spot next to her cushion. "_It doesn't look dead, really. Just...waiting._"

She sighed. "Maybe..."


	34. The Primary's Master

Chapter 34: The Primary's Master

"Steel, I think we're lost."

The lairon stared up at his trainer with a flat expression on his face. "_You think?_"

"Um...well, do you know where we are?"

"_No. I was under the impression that navigation was your job._"

Priscilla sighed. "I knew I should have brought Swift or Zuzu or _someone_ who was good with directions."

"_Perhaps next time you should bring more than one pokemon when you leave a city._"

"Well...I mean, our list of to-catch pokemon _is_ pretty long, so I thought -"

"_What if I faint? And what if something attacks before you can give me a Revive?_"

"Then...we're...screwed..."

"_Exactly._"

"Ugh."

The two of them trudged along, stealing uncomfortable glances at the darkening sky. "Okay, what if we just tried to go _back_ to Mauville City? Maybe it'll be easier than trying to go up north. I mean, it _is_ closer, after all."

"_Maybe that would be best._"

"Y-yeah..." Priscilla sighed. "I knew I should have waited another month and traveled with Nate."

"_Your rival? I thought you said you wanted to take a break from traveling with him, and then regroup after a badge or two, especially since he's AHEAD of you._"

"Okay, you know what?" Priscilla snapped, flicking a strand of brown hair out of her eyes. "Let's not talk about that. Just because he decided to crazy-train his pokemon during the off-season and snatch up his third badge on the first day possible and _then_ go out of order and get Petalburg's before Lavaridge's..." She trailed off, kicked a pebble, and groaned. "It just - it doesn't mean he's a better trainer, _okay?_ It just means that he has more time to spend on each pokemon. I have to train _way_ more pokemon than he does."

Steel just sort of shrugged as he began to lumber forward, plodding along next to Priscilla as they began to make their way back towards Mauville.

---

"Okay, I really think it didn't take us over two hours to get from Mauville City to where we were before," Priscilla said finally as she looked around. They seemed to be near the lake they past while leaving the city, and everything seemed pretty green, meaning they couldn't be too near the Route 111 desert.

But neither Priscilla nor Steel could see any sign of the Mauville City sprawl - not even the straggler houses, such as the famed Winstrate House, that crept into the wilderness towards the north.

"_It's pretty dark,_" Steel mumbled from behind his metallic clenched jaw. He tilted his head up to look at the sky, making an uncomfortable creaking sound that Priscilla still hadn't gotten used to. His neck never made that sound when he was an aron, though he assured her it was normal for newly-evolved steel-types. "_Maybe we should find a place to camp out for the night._"

"Yeah..."

Priscilla motioned for Steel to follow her off the path a bit, holding aside a large palm-like tree so they could find a private campsite.

It was then that Priscilla looked up and saw not a tropical jungle thicket, but an expansive clearing...

With a mansion in it. A large, black manor with a sort of Gothic-style architecture, complete with flying buttresses, ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and a general feeling of imposing grandeur.

It also felt like it housed evil, but that was probably because Priscilla recognized it from one of her daytime nightmares - specifically the one she got when she was staying at Crystal's house in Blackthorn City before she left to capture a Cianwood sunset.

So it didn't surprise Priscilla when two shadowy figures exited the front door of the large mansion and began to walk up the pathway through the neatly-trimmed garden to meet Priscilla and Steel. It vaguely surprised her that one was a small purple mammal, one that sort of resembled a glaceon she saw in a televised Pokemon super contest; however, it did _not_ surprise her that the creature had a red gem on its forehead.

"It's a haelliad," she whispered to Steel, who she heard thud closer to her and lean his helmet-covered head on her leg. "It's gotta be a haelliad."

"_What?_" Steel croaked, his voice smaller than it had been even as an aron. "_It's just an espeon._"

"Never mind. Just stay close." Priscilla squinted through the darkness to get a better view of the other approaching figure. She recognized her as the ball gown-clad woman from her daydream, but she never really got a good look at her through her dream vision before.

As the woman approached, Priscilla could see that she stood over a head taller than Priscilla, though her three-inch heels contributed to that. She had dark brown skin and almond-shaped dark red eyes on her angular face, along with a smile that seemed too wide for a human to pull off.

She wore a necklace of red gems around her neck, all of which glinted in the glowing light of the sunset.

It all seemed too familiar, ringing in the image of a pokemon not-so-long forgotten.

As she came within earshot, Priscilla straightened up, bit her lip, and tried to stay silent.

"You wretched little girl," said the woman with a thin smile, her eyes dark and bottomless. "How dare you come upon my mansion so late at night!"

The espeon at her feet stared up at Priscilla with cold eyes. She said nothing, not even through telepathy, but Priscilla could feel a sort of deep rooted malicious intent emanating out from her. She shuffled away from the espeon nervously, trying not to keep eye contact - or, even worse, look at the red gem on her forehead.

"Now," the lady said, placing her forefinger under Priscilla's chin and wrenching it up. "I do hope you'll stay the night, little girl, because otherwise I shall be very angry. _Very_ angry, indeed."

"Y-yeah," Priscilla said as she glanced down at her lairon friend, half in order to check on how he was doing and half as an excuse to look anywhere but in the woman's eyes. "D-don't worry, Steel," she told the pokemon, though she felt more like she said it just to reassure herself, "spending a night here won't be so bad."

Steel said nothing. He just shuffled even closer, the metal spikes on his head digging into Priscilla's leg. It hurt, but it felt comforting all the same.

"So then," the lady said softly, leaning down to look Priscilla directly in her eyes, close enough that Priscilla couldn't look away anymore. "You'll tell me all about your travels, won't you?" When she said this in person, Priscilla's stomach seized up in a way that Darcy could never command. "And I do mean _everything_. To make up for trespassing, of course."

"Of course," Priscilla repeated, putting a hand on Steel's cool outer shell for support. "Of course."

"Good. Now, what did you say your name was?"

"It's -"

"Go on, little girl. Do _not_ keep me waiting."

Priscilla took a deep breath. "It's Shannon," she said slowly. "Shannon Ngu-Nguyen. I'm Shannon Nguyen."

The older woman nodded slowly, releasing Priscilla's chin and smoothing her dark hair. "Well then, Shannon Nguyen, it is a - a _pleasure_ to meet you. I am Lady Virgillia, and this," she waved a hand towards the espeon, "is Mara."

The younger trainer had to force herself to smile when she met Mara's eyes. "_I am directly responsible for the recruitment of 1-Mara..._" the text in the grimoire had said. Mara was a haelliad, and not just a haelliad - first of the outsides. A primary.

And hadn't Umiou also written that the primaries held the most power?

By the look on Mara's face, Priscilla didn't feel sure that Mara wouldn't turn that power against her. If anything, Mara looked downright menacing.

"Come inside, little girl," Lady Virgillia ordered in a smooth tone as she turned to walk back towards the mansion. "If you try to run away, I shall have Mara tear you and your little lairon to pieces. She is rather good at that, you know."

Priscilla and Steel took one quick look at each other, then all but ran after Lady Virgillia and her espeon.

---

"Was that meal to your satisfaction?" Lady Virgillia asked as she stepped back inside the ornate dining room, a smile on her face but a glare in her eyes.

Priscilla tried to smile and nod, though she felt more like throwing up - Steel seemed to look the same way from his spot on the floor. It wasn't as if the food wasn't good, because it was. It didn't even seem poisoned, which Priscilla half-suspected when Mara teleported it onto the table in front of her - the meal in question, a platter of assorted grilled vegetables and tofu in a familiar, Sinnoh-style white sauce, seemed perfectly healthy.

It was the fact that Mara stood near the wall, staring at them for the entire meal that made Priscilla and Steel uneasy. Nor did it help that the espeon kept broadcasting "evil thoughts" (or so Priscilla assumed).

But Priscilla didn't really want to tell Lady Virgillia that. So instead, she just said: "yes."

The older woman kept her strained smile, not seeming to react to Priscilla's response. "Now - Shannon, you said it was? Shannon, I'd like you to come join me in the parlor." She glanced down in Steel's direction, turning her nose up at the sight of the beast. "You may recall your lairon."

Steel grunted in surprise, looking up at his trainer with a mix of horror and relief. Although Priscilla didn't want to be alone with (and outnumbered by) Lady Virgillia and Mara, she took out his pokeball and held it towards her lairon. "Don't worry. I'll make sure to release you in the morning."

And with a red zap, she was alone with the residents of the manor.

---

A few minutes later, Priscilla found herself sitting rigidly on a fancy wooden throne-style chair, staring across the room at Virgillia in a similar chair with Mara sitting by her feet.

"Now, Shannon," Lady Virgillia began, leaning her chin on the back of her hand and peering across the room at the little girl, "tell me your story."

"My...story?"

"Yes, the story of _why you are here._ You see, not many people trespass on my grounds like this, so I assume you have a _very_ exciting story to tell me as to why. If not," she said with a wave of her hand, "I shall have you put to death."

Priscilla gulped. Although Lady Virgillia said it rather casually, Mara, who probably would be doing the killing if it was needed, looked completely serious. "U-um...well...I'm - I'm on a training journey..."

"Go on."

"And I'm - I'm doing a sponsorship program. From - from RCGA, the - the Rustboro City Gym Academy," Priscilla explained, though she couldn't help but stutter under the combined stares of the woman and her espeon. "Um, I'm - I'm trying to, um, g-get all eight of the...the Hoenn badges."

Lady Virgillia nodded, her expression not changing. "And why would you want to do that?"

"Um, so...so I can go to Evergrande City."

"Are you interested in the League?"

Priscilla took a deep breath, prepared to lie for the first time. She glanced at Mara, then: "Yes. I'm - I mean, I want to challenge the League. B-beat the champion. Be-become the Hoenn Champion, I mean. That's why I want all eight Hoenn badges. So - so I can, um, do that."

When Mara's split tail lashed to the side, Priscilla knew she made a mistake. "You're lying," Lady Virgillia whispered, standing up and crossing the room to Priscilla's chair, her high heels clacking on the hardwood floor. She stood over Priscilla for a few moments, towering over the younger girl and making her shrink into her chair. "You want to get all eight Hoenn gym badges, yes, but you do not wish to challenge our highly esteemed Hoenn Champion."

"I - I -"

Then she screamed as Virgillia snatched her hair, pulling it upward with one hand and snapping her other hand around Priscilla's right hand, squishing it against the arm of her chair. Priscilla's left hand was left to twitch helplessly in the air near her hair, too afraid to try and loosen the grip of the Lady.

"You would do well," the Lady hissed, her face close to Priscilla's, "to refrain from lying to me. I am being honest with you, Shannon Nguyen, and it would be polite to return the favor. Keeping that in mind," she added with a twisted grin, "I'd like to remind you that I threatened to kill you if your story did not live up to my expectations. I fully intend to carry out my threat if you do not obey my rules while in my house."

Priscilla whimpered a bit, feeling hot tears roll down her cheeks. She tried to nod, but when that tugged on her hair, it stung her already burning scalp.

It seemed to do the trick, though, as Virgillia's grip loosened. "Very good," she purred, letting go of Priscilla's right wrist and hair altogether and straightening up. "Do you agree to be perfectly honest with me from now on, little girl?"

The little girl in question nodded, holding her throbbing wrist and choking back the sobs she dearly wanted to let out.

"Now," Lady Virgillia began, her grin almost as wide and terrifying as the necklace of red jewels she wore around her neck, "why don't you tell me about some of the objects in your little bag over there?"

Priscilla stole a glance at her yellow backpack, which lay against the wall just a little ways behind her. "What - what do you mean?"

"My dear Mara saw a few items that she found quite interesting," the woman explained as she walked over to the backpack.

"D-don't open it!"

"Why not?" Lady Virgillia asked innocently.

Priscilla squeezed her eyes shut when she heard the sound of a zipper opening. _Please don't take the sunset,_ she prayed. _Please don't take the sunset. Please don't take the sunset. Please, God, don't make her take the sunset -_

But Priscilla didn't need to worry about the sunset, because Lady Virgillia held a different item in her outstretched hands.

"Why exactly," she hissed, her fingernails digging into the black cover of the grimoire, "do you have our grimoire?"

"I...I...you - a-are you a -"

"Am I a _haelliad?_" Lady Virgillia asked, mocking Priscilla's tone of voice. "Really, little girl, who do you think I _am?_" Without waiting for an answer, the woman turned to the espeon across the room. "Put her to sleep and eat her dreams. We shall find our answers much more efficiently with a nice dream eater."

Priscilla had barely enough time to snap her head around to look at Mara before she swooned and fell against the back of the chair, unconscious.


	35. The Scourge of Hoenn

Chapter 35: The Scourge of Hoenn

"...You're sure you don't remember anything from that night?"

"_Yes. Quite sure._"

"The names 'Virgillia' - er, I mean, '_Lady_ Virgillia' - and 'Mara' don't ring any bells?"

"_Not at all._"

Priscilla sighed, shaking her head. When she woke up that first morning after leaving Mauville City, she had expected to find herself inside a grand-yet-unmistakably-evil mansion in a heavily wooded area of southern Route 111.

That was, in fact, where she found herself...

...Minus the mansion.

Not to mention the fact that Mara and Lady Virgillia were nowhere to be found and the only evidence Priscilla had of meeting them was locked in her own memory. Even though Steel supposedly experienced the same terrifying meeting and dinner, he remembered none of it.

His account of the nights' events pretty much amounted to: "_We needed to find a place to camp, so we went a bit off the road and fell asleep in the woods. Then we woke up and went on our way back to Mauville City to regroup._"

Nor did he remember it at a later date. When Priscilla went back to Mauville, she had the nurse at the Pokemon Center have a psychic pokemon check his memory, just in case he was lying or too traumatized to access his memories of meeting the Lady and her espeon companion.

But the psychic in question, a rather powerful looking grumpig, found nothing other than what Steel had already told her. When the grumpig asked if he wanted to check Priscilla's memory, she refused - the idea of a psychic poking around her own memory frightened her more than Steel remembering different events.

She made sure to bring another pokemon with her - Swift, the taillow that usually stayed with Haley, in case they got lost.

Their trip to Lavaridge went smoothly. Swift helped get a birds' eye view when Priscilla inevitably got lost again, she caught her needed pokemon without too much difficulty, and the tram up the side of Mount Chimney didn't break. (Although, she did have some nasty flashbacks to Cianwood City while riding the tram, and decided that from then on, she never wanted to have to use the tram again.)

But no matter what, Steel never remembered that night again.

---

_Rustboro City Gym Academy Blogs:_

_Field Trainers:_

_Shannon Nguyen_

_Date: June 2_

_Subject: Fourth badge!_

_Hey! :) OMG you guys...guess what? I just won my fourth badge! I'm so excited, because that's half of the badges in the entire Hoenn region. I still can't believe I beat Flannery._

_It was such a weird fight, and I was SUPER nervous going into it because I had a brand-new team and didn't know what to expect. That's right! I had a brand-new team! It was a three-on-three battle, and my team was this:_

_Shang (sandshrew - male - level bracket: 20s)_ _Destiny (numel - female - level bracket: 20s)_ _Richter (machop - male - level bracket: 20s)_

_I thought I was going to be really badly off because I was sooooo stupid and didn't train up a water-type pokemon. I was thinking about using Winnie, my wingull, but she wasn't in my reserves and I couldn't get her in time for my battle...but that's okay to whoever's using her for summer training. :) I did fine with Shang, Des (short for Destiny, haha), and Richter._

_Flannery used her slugma, numel, and torkoal. (Duh...) Basically, she sent out her slugma first, who poisoned Shang, so I had to recall him. Which sucked, because Shang was totally going to win...then Des went up against her numel, and Des wasn't doing so hot (LOL), so I took her out for Richter. Then Flannery sent out Torkoal, which is her BEST POKEMON, and Richter had no type advantage._

_So I beat Torkoal with speed, agility, and super amazing martial arts. ;)_

_Oh, and the whole thing was in the hot springs, since I'm a girl, and it was kind of a hot day already. It was my first time fighting...naked...haha! I mean, I'd been in a hot spring before, but never for a gym battle. So that was weird._

_Anyway, tomorrow I head back south so I can challenge Norman at the Petalburg City Gym! I'm super excited, especially since I've already trained Richter up a bunch. So he's staying on my team. I might train Shang some more, too, but he won't be on my team against Norman. I'm totally scared for going up against Norman, since his only weakness is fighting-types and his pokemon are CRAZY GOOD._

_Oh, but Des isn't going into my reserves, so if you want to train her, just say so! She's awesome. :)_

_Yeah, so that's about it. Talk to you guys again soon!_

_Love, Shannon! :) :) :)_

Priscilla sighed. "I hope that bit about the hot springs doesn't label me as a prudish Sinnohan..."

The paragraph about the hot springs battle had, in fact, been quite the understatement. Priscilla had forgotten that in Hoenn, communal hot springs weren't out of the ordinary. Just like in locker room-style showers, everyone bathed together.

When Flannery suggested they do their battle in the hot springs, Priscilla really wanted to say no - but then she remembered that she had to appear as if she was a Hoennese girl, and Hoennese girls _loved_ hot springs. (Once she emailed Haley, Jessica, Natalie, and Emma about it, they _all_ sent her squealing emails about how they wished _they_ could fight their important battles while relaxing in Lavaridge's best hot springs. Priscilla didn't get it.)

And that was how she won her fourth gym battle without any clothes on.

"Okay, so...that's posted," Priscilla mumbled, pressing "publish" and logging out. "Now I just gotta go pick up Shang, Richter, and withdraw..."

She stopped, a sudden chill coming over her.

Priscilla twisted her head around to look behind her. She sat in the computer lounge in the Lavaridge Town Public Library, as the computers in the Pokemon Center were either in use or out of service. The library had its air conditioning on full-force, as summer days in Lavaridge could be brutally hot, but the chill seemed so much more..._frigid._

That, and standing by the books was a boy she remembered.

He looked a few years older than he was when they last met - two years older, to be exact. She recognized him because of his familiar pale skin, light brown hair, and confident stature.

The dustox on his shoulder didn't hurt, either.

"Tanner!" she exclaimed, snatching up her backpack.

The boy in question - Tanner Hamilton - turned around, his foreign eyes giving her the once over. He frowned. "Do I know you?"

"Yeah! We met back -" Priscilla stopped, her enthusiasm fading away in an instant. If she told Tanner that she was the little starting trainer he met outside of Pastoria City two years prior, that would mean giving away her identity as a Sinnohan trainer. If anybody in the library overheard that she wasn't who she was saying she was, she could technically get arrested for fraud thanks to her contract with Rustboro City Gym Academy.

But she didn't have to continue, because Tanner snatched her hand and dragged her deeper into the bowels of the library, not stopping until they were alone in the dusty history section. He looked deep into her eyes and whispered, "are you from Sinnoh?"

Throwing caution to the wind, Priscilla nodded slowly.

She saw Tanner exchange a quick glance with his dustox, who she vaguely remembered as being his starter and having a name that sounded like "chrysalis". Then he looked back at her, his eyes steely and serious. "Where did I meet you?"

"Out - outside of Pastoria. I, um, had just started out, and -"

"You're the yanma girl?"

"Y-yeah, but, um, I don't train him anymore."

Tanner nodded. "What's your new name?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're not using your old name, right? Where are you from, now?" He sighed, brushing his finger against his dustox's wings. "I'm guessing you're, uh, you know...Puja Parekh from Lilycove City, or something."

Priscilla smiled weakly, pushing a loose hair back under her purple hairband. "Actually, I'm Shannon Nguyen, but I'm still from, um, Lilycove City. Um, who're you now?"

"Still Tanner Hamilton. My mom's Hoennese, and she wanted me to go to middle school here. I managed to arrive a month before Sinnoh got closed off, but a lot of my friends and extended family're still back there," he said, sighing. "It's really tough. I barely ever use my luxray and my buizel anymore, and I try to keep my ponyta on the down-low, too. People just get nervous when they see anything that could be from Sinnoh, you know?"

"That's why I'm Shannon now," Priscilla mumbled. "I don't even _have_ my old team. They're with friends. Right now I'm training a sandshrew, machop, and lairon - except I gotta go pick 'em up."

"At the Pokemon Center?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. I'll come with. I gotta pick up my pokemon, too."

"Okay, let's -" Priscilla stopped, a dusty book in the shelves next to her having caught her eye. She pulled it out, staring at the cover.

The cover had an old, Victorian-style painting of a woman in a burgundy ball gown.

She had seen that woman before, though in a purple ball gown instead of burgundy.

Below the picture, the book's title sat in all its curlicued glory, just as she had seen it on the spine.

"Hey, Tanner?"

"Yeah?"

"Um, do you know anything about this person?"

She held up the book, allowing the other trainer to get a better look. He shrugged. "Yeah, that's Lady Virgillia. It's probably a book about her."

"Why does it say 'Lady Virgillia: The Scourge of Hoenn'?"

"Because that's the title."

"Yeah, I know that. But _why's_ that the title?"

He shrugged again, his dustox ruffling her wings at the unwelcome bobbing motion. "Probably because she killed tons of people."

"Killed lots of - wait. How old is she? Is she still alive? Where is she?"

Tanner looked at her quizzically. "She died, like, over a hundred years ago. Maybe two hundred, I forget."

Priscilla shoved the book back into the shelf, not wanting to look at the portrait of Lady Virgillia on the cover any longer. "Um, let's go to the Pokemon Center now."

"Don't you wanna check out that -"

"No." She shoved past Tanner and stomped out of the history section, her eyes locked on the door. "I'm not gonna let ghosts run my life anymore."

Tanner's dustox took to the air, giving her trainer a strange look. "No idea, Cryssa," he said after she chattered her confusion at "Shannon's" strange actions. "Maybe she's just scared of ghosts."

---

Priscilla gulped as she saw Norman's slaking. Sure, he looked lazy and wouldn't attack every turn, but he was so _big._

"Richter," she said, glancing over at her machoke. He flexed his muscled and returned her worried look. "Let's, um, try and end this quickly?"

"_Try - _ma_?_" he repeated. Priscilla had only begun to understand him two days before, but his tone of voice was unmistakable. He felt just as nervous as Priscilla did about going up against the normal-types.

Mostly because Priscilla's strategy was mostly offensive, and Norman's team was _crazy _good at offense, themselves. She watched one of the gym battles before her, since Norman usually fought outside, in the streets of Petalburg City (unless it rained too heavily). The girl, a young, thin, Eastern Hoenn girl, had a machamp. Not a machoke like Priscilla, but a fully-evolved machamp.

He went down in one hit to Slaking's hyper beam.

Now Priscilla and Richter stood in the middle of a pedestrian street, staring down the same gym leader and slaking.

And neither felt too confident. After all, Priscilla's main strategy didn't involve much room for defense - Steel was her only real defensive wall, and that wasn't saying much, as she hadn't trained him enough for him to evolve. The small lairon would stand no chance if Norman's slakings decided to use hyper beam.

Richter knew that Priscilla was depending on him, Hideyoshi, or Torra. Hideyoshi, while a fully-evolved hariyama, wasn't as well-trained as Richter, and not as fast. Torra, while fully-evolved, fought in a style that Priscilla still hadn't gotten used to.

Which meant he had to defeat Slaking before Priscilla needed to switch him out for Hideyoshi, Torra, or (in a worst-case scenario) Steel.

"Vital throw!" Priscilla ordered, racing ahead towards Slaking and Norman, just slightly behind Richter. Following Vrinda's advice, she made sure to train alongside her fighting-type pokemon, trying to pick up their style of fighting while she helped them grow stronger. Richter's machop-line style was fairly easy to figure out and start to learn, and Hideyoshi's makuhita/hariyama style seemed fairly logical.

It was Torra that she had trouble with.

As Richter grabbed onto Slaking's body and tried to throw him, Priscilla hung back and tried to flex her arms along with Richter. The better she could understand and feel how he was fighting, the better she could judge his situations and try and come up with new strategies.

She also ducked her head, trying to examine both Norman and Slaking from the same angle. Norman was known for quick battles, knocking his enemies out in the first couple of hits -

"Let go!" she yelled, jumping back in unison with Richter, who was able to see her backwards-shifting weight and respond to it faster than her orders came out.

So when Slaking fired his hyper beam, Richter only got hit in the side, not the stomach.

The beam sent him sprawling, hitting the side of one of the gym facilities with an angry thud. Priscilla dashed over, relieved once she saw that he was barely conscious.

"You can return," she said, zapping Richter into a pokeball before he had a chance to respond or - worse - fall unconscious. "I'm using Hideyoshi now!" she yelled, releasing her hariyama.

Both hariyama and trainer slammed their feet into the ground, doing a parter energy-charge-up that Hideyoshi taught Priscilla the day before. By grounding themselves and retaining balance in unison, they would feel more confident in battle.

Priscilla then held up her palms and shot them forward in a demonstration of the attack she wanted. Hideyoshi preferred nonverbal commands, such as the demonstration of force palm instead of the vocal order for one.

He charged forward, thrusting his arms and palms forward to hit the slow-moving sloth. When Slaking didn't attack back, the hariyama slammed his palms down once again, shoving the slaking into the ground and paralyzing his torso.

Hideyoshi didn't see Norman's grin, but Priscilla did. She quickly pulled her arms back, folding them in and attacking backwards with her elbows as she stomped with her left foot.

Luckily, Hideyoshi noticed her order to retreat _before_ Slaking released his supercharged facade attack, rolling into the hariyama and only half-crushing his legs before relaxing.

Priscilla ran forward and recalled her hariyama, releasing her third pokemon: Torra, the pokemon she temporarily traded Shang to Tanner for. Tanner had managed to get ahold of a torchic a year and a half ago, and since then, he trained her into a combusken.

When Priscilla had left Lavaridge Town, she agreed to evolve Torra into a blaziken if Tanner would evolve Shang into a sandslash.

Now Torra the blaziken stood tall next to Priscilla, reminding her somewhat of Vrinda.

"Stay back," Priscilla said, changing her tactics. "They're gonna come to us."

The blaziken, a haughty, serious girl, just shrugged. Tanner told her that Torra, the now-blaziken, was one of his best new fighters.

But then again, the only other new pokemon he had since he left Sinnoh was a zigzagoon named Zaggo, so Priscilla didn't really think much of the statement.

"I withdraw Slaking," Norman said from across the pedestrian walkway, causing a rumble of hushed commentary from the gathered spectators. "Vigoroth!"

Priscilla frowned when she saw the middle stage of Norman's signature line come out. She had a scowling face and drooping arms, but was as alert as Slaking had been calm.

And she was _fast._ No sooner had she appeared out of her Luxury Ball did Norman's vigoroth run forward, slashing across Torra's arm.

"Let's go!" Priscilla gasped, tugging on Torra's other arm once she kicked off Vigoroth. Even though Torra's right arm now hung limp, her legs were fine. She dashed into the crowd, followed by the agile blaziken, running into an alleyway. "C'mon," she said, scrambling up a pile of stacked wooden crates near a restaurant.

Torra only had to take one jump to land on the top, holding out her good arm to help Priscilla hoist her body up to the peak of the crate-mountain.

She turned to see Vigoroth snarling below, dashing over to the bottom of the crate pile.

"Um, Torra," Priscilla whispered, glancing over at Norman, who hung back near the entrance to the alleyway. "Wait. Wait for Vigoroth to start climbing."

Vigoroth gnashed her teeth, then put her arms on one of the crates and pulled the rest of her body up. As she began to scramble up the side of the crates towards Priscilla and Torra, Torra grabbed Priscilla around the waist with her good arm, kicked down on the pressure point of the top crate, and soared into the air.

When she landed a few feet away from the bottom of the crates, she deposited her trainer, then kicked another one of the bottom crates.

Norman's vigoroth only had time to yelp in surprise when the entire stack of wooden crates tumbled down on her, crushing her torso and pinning her onto the dirty concrete alley floor.

"Blaze kick," Priscilla ordered. The blaziken set the wooden crates on fire with a single kick, roasting the sloth inside.

"You win," Norman said from behind as he released a linoone and ordered it to use a surf attack. "Nice strategy," he added once the flames were out and he could safely return his pokemon. "It was a good battle."

"Um, thanks," Priscilla mumbled as she took the badge he offered and returned Tanner's blaziken. As she left the alleyway, brushing off her clothes, she noticed a familiar grinning face in the dispersing crowd. "Nate!"

She ran forward, throwing her arms around her rival. "Shannon! Dude, that was awesome!" he exclaimed, giving her a friendly squeeze. "So that's...five badges for you, now?"

Grinning madly, she nodded, showing off her new Balance Badge. "You have five badges, too, right?"

"Yep. So whad'ya think?" Nate asked, brushing his brown hair out of his face. Priscilla noticed that it had become long and shaggy, noting that he hadn't had a haircut in awhile - neither had she, in fact. Her own brown hair had grown out of its layered cut and fell past her shoulders, ending in thousands of dried split-ends. "What are you gonna do for the rest of the season?"

The younger girl sighed. "Man, I dunno. There's like, two weeks left." She looked up at Nate. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Dunno. You wanna travel somewhere?"

"Where?"

"We could hang out in Oldale, then take a ferry across the river and go back to Mauville or Slateport. Ooh! Or we could go up to Rustboro and take the tunnel over to Verdanturf!"

"What's there to do in Verdanturf?"

"I dunno, contests?"

"Contests are stupid."

"Yeah, but they're something to do. You wanna head to the Pokemon Center? Get your blaziken fixed up - how'd you get one, anyway?" he asked excitedly as they started to head down the city streets towards the 'Center.

Priscilla opened her mouth to explain (but leave out the part about meeting Tanner in Sinnoh), but then stopped. "Hey, Nate?" she began, deciding to change the subject.

"What?"

"Do you know anything about Lady Virgillia?"

Nate frowned. "She's that lady who killed a bunch of people, right?"

"Um, I think so. Do you - do you know if she had an espeon?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't think so. Espeon don't really live here. They're more, like, Kanto-Johto pokemon, not Hoennese. Why?"

"Just - I, um, saw a picture. Of a woman that, um, looked like Lady Virgillia - or, like, that's what the caption said - and she had an espeon next to her. An espeon named," she glanced up at Nate to see if he showed any flash of recognition, "Mara."

His confused, not-that-interested expression didn't change. "Nope. Never heard of anything like that."

"Do you think that Lady Virgillia could be a ghost?"

Nate looked a bit taken aback by this. "Why, you wanna go to Mount Pyre and see if she's there, or something? Dude, I don't think she'd come back as a ghost. When they executed her, I'm pretty sure they tried to make it so she'd _never_ come back. She was pretty scary. There's a statue of her in Lilycove City - you've seen it, right? Cuz that's where you're from, right?"

"Yeah, um, I've seen it..."

"Ooh, but they say that if you get her mad, she'll make sure to kill you from beyond the grave!" Nate added, his maniacal grin back. "And some say she was a witch with evil powers!"

"That's stupid. Witches don't exist."

"Yeah, tell that to one when you're about to DIE."

Priscilla groaned, lightly punching her rival in the shoulder.. "So, um, Verdanturf. Are we going, or what?"

---

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away - and even more kilometers, once you got back into the regions that used the metric system - Lyrisa found who she was told to look for. In fact, she stood outside the building housing the person, using their body as an original from which to copy with her own.

"So strange," she whispered to the night, leaning against the building and looking at her left hand. "Beatrice, you've really made things interesting."

Holding in her urge to cackle madly, she thought back to things in Hoenn - Mara, Pentyl, Badr, Nasu and Hallas, and Zenith and Nadir.

Not to mention Mara's _companion_.

Lyrisa sighed. As far as she knew, Priscilla was still alive. As far as she knew, Darcy and Zenith's interfering with Priscilla's life had made her important enough to _keep_ alive.

She couldn't help it. After turning into Priscilla's mother and holding her close, she couldn't let Priscilla die. "My little girl," Lyrisa whispered, placing her hand on her stomach. She knew the torso she had copied could create and bear a child without any real problem.

Then why was it that she, a copy of the creature thought to be the pokemon from which all modern species of pokemon had evolved from, couldn't give birth herself?

"Heh," she hissed, looking up at the night sky with a sick, sick smile on her face and thinking back to the past. "But I'd do anything for you, my darling daughter."

The sky didn't answer, but she could remember the little girl looking up at her with big eyes, a tender image from so long ago, asking her why.

"Because I'm your mother."

Lyrisa then had to stop thinking about her "daughter", because then she would have to think about how those big eyes, once filled with curiosity and happiness and love, had disappeared.

Why had they disappeared?

"Because I'm your mother."

---

Author's Note: I just want to thank everyone who's reviewed - Poltergeist's now has 100 reviews! :) Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. It really means a lot!


	36. Karishma and Goldsmith

Chapter 36: Karishma and Goldsmith

_Rustboro City Gym Academy Blogs:_

_Field Trainers:_

_Shannon Nguyen_

_Date: April 27_

_Subject: A little bump in the road...uh-oh..._

_Okay, so you guys know how last time I posted, I was planning on meeting up with one of my friends (my rival) to travel to Fortree City, right? Because we're both trying to get all eight badges, and we both have five._

_Well, guess what._

_HE BROKE HIS LEG._

_Yeah, I know! He broke his leg! I was going to wait to set out for Fortree with him, since he had to do some certification battling at Mauville City Gym or something...he caught a plusle and a minun and was battling with them, and I was helping him train..._

_And he finally passed the test he needed to pass..._

_And then he got in this weird training accident and broke his left leg, so he can't train this season. :( :( :( Everybody should leave TONS AND TONS of comments so my friend will get better really fast. His name is Nate Tran, so leave him lots of get well wishes..._

_Yeah. So I gotta find someone to travel with, now, since you all know the superstitions about trainers traveling alone to and from Fortree City. ;) Plus, I'm super sick of traveling alone! I'll try and find someone to travel with - I'll keep you all posted._

_Oh, and guess what? I've decided that once I get my sixth badge...LAKSHMI is gonna be on my team. I've made up my mind about it. I'll train her again, because it sucks just having her around during the off-season. But until then, I'm going to leave Mauville with Sting (tentacool), Fang (poochyena), and Ike (electrike). I figure Ike'll be good against Winona, especially if I can evolve him into a manectric. Sting seems like a good choice since there's a lot of water, and Fang is...Fang. So yeah. I'll be training a lot of what I catch, too, to see if there are pokemon that'll be good against Winona or for the road...since it's a super duper long route..._

_Yeah._

_Oh, and thanks to Natalie and Jessica for the late birthday card. Haha, it made me laugh. Better late than never, guys. :) I still can't believe I'm a TEENAGER now._

_Anyway._

_Wish me luck trying to find someone to travel with! Love you all! XOXOXOXOXO - Shannon_

"Okay," Priscilla said as she pressed "publish". "Time to get to work."

At her feet, Fang barked his encouragement. Priscilla still couldn't understand him, but he wasn't _that_ bad at battling, and he was bound to evolve soon. She liked having him around, so he was on her traveling team, even though she doubted he'd ever be good against an actual gym leader.

Around the common room of the Mauville City Pokemon Center, Priscilla saw around ten trainers gathered, seven of whom she could eliminate right away - she only wanted to travel with one other person, and these seven were clearly segregated into two groups of two and one group of three.

The three who remained boiled down to a bright-eyed little boy with an electrike, a tallish girl with a kadabra, and a chubby boy with a roselia.

Priscilla took one look at Mister Chubby's roselia and decided that she would only travel with him if electrike-boy and kadabra-girl turned out to be mass murderers or possessed by ghosts (or both). After all, she still had the image of a rogue shiny roselia trying to kill her burned into her mind, no matter how long ago it was.

And shiny or not, roselias were _not_ on her love-list.

So roselia-boy was out, leaving electrike-boy and kadabra-girl.

First, Priscilla looked at kadabra-girl. The girl looked a bit taller than her, with skin a shade darker than hers and layered black hair. She wore a pink tank top shirt over jean shorts that looked to be new and chic, and her gold jewelry gave Priscilla a bad taste in her mouth. Her friends at school gave her enough flak over not having nice clothes all the time - she did _not_ need a jewelry-flaunting, designer-shorts-wearing teenager nagging her about it during the long hike to Fortree City.

That, and her kadabra seemed a little wary when he saw Priscilla's poochyena. She didn't want to start things off badly with her fellow traveler's pokemon.

Which left electrike-boy. Taking a deep breath, Priscilla walked over to the boy, who was sitting on one of the couches watching the overhead TV.

"Hey," she said with a smile, sitting down next to the boy. Fang jumped up on her lap, sniffing the electrike excitedly. "You traveling with anyone?"

The boy looked up, grinning madly. "No! Ooh boy, you look like you're a veteran trainer!"

"Um...well, it's my fourth season -"

"Wow! How many badges ya got?"

"Um - well, I have five, so -"

"Wow wow _wow!_ Which ones?"

Priscilla sighed. This didn't bode well. "Rustboro, Dewford, Mauville, Lavaridge, and Petalburg. Next I'm gonna try and get Fortree -"

"You're going up against _Winona?_"

"Uh, yeah, that's the general idea." Priscilla edged back a little, putting Fang back down on the floor before he started to get too attached to the boy. "Wait - how old are you?"

"Ten! Sparky's my very first pokemon, and I'm training for my first gym badge. Wanna help?"

Standing up, Priscilla gave him a terse smile and began to edge away even more. "Sorry, um, I'm leaving for Fortree right away - it was nice meeting you, good luck on your gym battle, bye!"

Before she could wait for the boy to respond, she high-tailed it for kadabra-girl, Fang dashing ahead.

The girl looked up when Fang all but jumped into her lap, the kadabra to her left looking disgusted at the dark-type. "Sorry," Priscilla said as she ran up to pick her poochyena off the floor. "He's kind of, um, energetic."

"Oh, uh, that's okay," the girl replied with a flashy smile, looking up from her cell phone.

Biting back the general feeling of awkward culture shock, Priscilla opened her mouth: "Hey, so I know we don't really know each other, but are you by any chance heading towards Fortree City?"

---

As it turned out, kadabra-girl _was_ heading towards Fortree City. (As it turned out, kadabra-girl had a name - Karishma "Kari" Singh, and had more than just a kadabra on her team. However, the kadabra, Goldsmith, was her starter, best, and signature pokemon, so Priscilla figured the label of "kadabra-girl" was pretty well chosen after all.)

Kari also turned out to be a year older, of Indian background, and from Pacifidlog Town. She also turned out to be a good match for Priscilla friend-wise, as over the next few weeks, they grew somewhat close.

However, Priscilla and Kari did _not_ agree on anything fashion-related or jewelry-related, and could get into fairly scathing arguments over both matters.

In fact, around three days from Fortree City, they woke up in a mood to argue:

"Okay, seriously, Shannon? You need to stop freaking wearing purple all the time. _Especially_ with that backpack. Get a new effing backpack."

"Shut up, okay? It's fine. It works. It's not that ugly."

"Um, hello? How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"And how old am I?"

"Fourteen."

Kari sniffed, tossing her black hair behind her shoulder and slipping in an "on the road" earring into her left ear. Priscilla still couldn't understand why Kari wore jewelry while traveling, even if the earrings, necklaces, and bracelets _were_ designed for travel wear. "Don't you mean 'almost fifteen'?"

"You turn fifteen in, like, two months!"

"A month and a half, Shan. A month and a _half._" She glanced up at her kadabra, who was busying himself with putting away the tent. Next to him stood Vrinda, her body once again in top fighting condition after traveling with her trainer for the first time in over two years. "Goldsmith! Stop hitting on Lakshmi and tell me if my earrings are on straight!"

The kadabra rolled his eyes, glanced over, and said, "_they're on straight,_" before going back to work.

"I could've told you that, you know," Priscilla grumbled as she shoved her hairband on. Looking down, she saw that her long purple tank top, black stretch-belt holding it tight around her waist, and black biker shorts underneath had mud stains all over them from getting stuck in multiple minor mudslides. Route 118 and Route 119 were _not_ conducive to clean clothes, no matter how often she stopped by (or fell in) the river.

Her current team, on the other hand, loved the environment - Sting, her now-tentacruel, had become her best pokemon extremely quickly thanks to the easily accessible river battlefields. Along with Sting, she brought "Lakshmi", who loved the chance to explore and fight wild pokemon again, no matter how different the warm climate differed from her frigid home in Sinnoh. (Although she didn't originally plan on bringing Vrinda, when Ike turned out to be all but useless in the muddy environment, she seemed more appropriate.) Fang had also enjoyed the many opportunities to roll around in fresh mud, and evolution was imminent.

She also caught three pokemon to bring with her: a tropius named Tropo, a linoone named Lina, and a recently evolved gyarados named Draco.

"So, um," Priscilla finally said when she and Kari had un-camped, "anything you really need to do today? Or should we just, like, try and head for Fortree instead of exploring, or whatever?"

Kari shrugged, releasing the rest of her team to size them up. Next to Goldsmith the kadabra stood her nuzleaf, Seamus, who Priscilla found to be a bit standoffish, though good in battle. Above Seamus fluttered her newly-evolved altaria, Cloud, whose tutored ice-typed attacks made him a key choice against Winona. Her final pokemon, Ophelia the crawdaunt, hung back behind Seamus, glaring at both Kari and Priscilla.

Vrinda walked back from the former campsite, gesturing to Ophelia. "_She hasn't warmed up at all,_" she telepathically whispered, making sure to only send her thoughts to Priscilla. "_The only time I could talk to her was when she said she missed her old trainer._"

"She used to be Kari's uncle's, right?" Priscilla hissed back.

"_I think. I dunno. Doesn't help that she's a dark-type._"

"Yeah."

When Kari finished giving her team a once-over, she returned Ophelia first, then Cloud. "Cloud's pretty good for now, but I guess I'll work on training Seamus for the day. You wanna go back in your 'ball, Goldsmith?"

The kadabra shook his head, and Priscilla noticed Vrinda giggle a bit at this. "_He hates that pokeball,_" she whispered, apparently eager to gossip.

Her trainer sniggered a bit, though she looked away when the kadabra glared at her. "Yeah, no kidding."

"What about you?" Kari asked, fiddling with her necklace. "You ready to go up against Winona?"

"Um, I dunno. I guess today I'll work on training Fang," Priscilla replied, digging out her poochyena's pokeball and releasing him. He bounded out of the white flash and dashed around the former campsite, sporadically digging holes, snarling at plants, and scratching his ears. According to Kari, that meant his skin was starting to itch, which usually happened to pokemon near evolution. "Once he evolves...I dunno. I might use him against Winona, but I seriously don't know. None of my electric pokemon are that great, and a lot of the pokemon I have with me right now are weak to stupid ice-types, and can't battle in the air or strong wind. It's like, a big weak point for me, or something."

"_Ironic, no? Ice and flying? Like in a blizzard?_" Vrinda muttered, but stopped when Priscilla elbowed her in the side. "_Shutting up. Sheesh._"

Kari shrugged. "Well, it's gonna be four-on-four, right?"

The younger trainer nodded, motioning for Vrinda and Fang to follow as they began to head into the grassy, riverside rainforest. (Fang took a bit more convincing, as he was busy chasing his tail.)

"So you're gonna use...what, Sting? Draco?"

"Probably Sting. Dunno about Draco. Maybe...Tropo? Or Fang?"

Kari sighed. "How are you gonna beat _birds_ with a jellyfish, a sea serpent, a grass-type, and a dog?"

"...Um...I dunno..."

"You can borrow Cloud," Kari offered, holding up Cloud's luxury ball. "There aren't any rules about two people using the same pokemon for one gym. Plus, I mean, he's a bird, so he can fight in the air, and he knows ice beam. Can't get much better than that."

"Yeah..." Priscilla sighed, though Fang's barking soon snapped her out of it. "Bite!"

Fang shot forward, flushing out a zigzagoon. With a swift bite to the raccoon's neck, he took ahold of the creature and tossed it back into the bush. He jumped into the thicket to follow, and Priscilla jogged forward to see him standing triumphant over the fallen zigzagoon.

The poochyena, his mouth pulled back to show his bloody teeth, lifted his head back and began to bark towards the hazy summer sky, his barks giving way to a ear-piercing howl.

The howl began to deepen in pitch, taking on a growling undertone as his body began to glow.

Before Priscilla could react, Fang had grown to over three times his old size. His former golden eyes were now a bloody red, and his coat now looked blacker and scragglier.

His teeth and claws were much, much longer and much, much sharper.

When he stopped glowing, he snapped his head over to look at Priscilla.

"F-Fang?"

He didn't stop growling, but he stood up on all fours, slowly advancing on his intimidated trainer.

"Fang? What - what are you doing?"

Gone, apparently, was the excitable, loyal, good-natured poochyena. In front of Priscilla stood a mightyena she didn't recognize, one that looked angry enough to kill her.

She froze when he lunged at her, teeth bared.

"Nature power!"

Fang howled when the grass around him suddenly turned on him, vines shooting up and wrapping around his legs while leaves cut into his new coat and skin.

Unable to take her eyes off her Hoenn starter, Priscilla felt Kari roughly pull her away from the battle site as Seamus finished off the mightyena with a few well-placed fake outs and razor winds.

"I don't get it," Priscilla whimpered as Kari led her over to an anxious Vrinda, who handed the other trainer Fang's pokeball. The younger girl sniffled, burying her head into Vrinda's shoulder as a cold Goldsmith stood over them. "I - I don't get it."

Kari and Seamus returned from the site of the attack with a filled pokeball. Vrinda let go of Priscilla long enough to take the pokeball from Seamus, while Kari wrapped her arms around her temporarily Vrinda-hug-less friend. "It's okay, evolution can be...intense."

"But - but not Fang!" Priscilla whined, rubbing her eyes and wanting to disappear into a dark corner where she could cry her eyes out. Maybe even throw a temper tantrum, though she hadn't in years. She couldn't shake the feelings of anguish, betrayal, and hurt that Fang caused with just a single look. "He's - he's my - my friend!"

Kari sighed, giving the younger girl an extra squeeze before letting go, putting her hands on Priscilla's shoulders and looking her in the eyes. "Shannon, this happens sometimes. Some pokemon really change when they evolve - it's natural for them, but it doesn't always mean they stay compatible for a team. It's kind of like how when people grow up, sometimes they grow apart, but this happens right away." She sighed, and added, "dark-types are like this a lot, too. I mean, how do you think _I_ felt when Ophelia evolved into a crawdaunt? We used to get along, and now we can barely stand each other."

Next to them, Vrinda watched as Seamus shivered, anticipating his own evolution into a dark-type. For the first time, the medicham saw a scared, helpless expression on his face.

But on Goldsmith's she saw a different expression: instead of a cold blank face, a face full of cold confusion. She stepped forward, putting a hand on the kadabra's shoulder.

"_What?_" she asked, hoping she could find an opening in his mental firewall long enough to figure out his expression.

But no - Goldsmith closed her off, turning back to a cold, blank wall of expression. "_This emotional meltdown is interfering with our goals,_" he snapped, shrugging her off. "_Please refrain from touching me._"

"_Sheesh, sorry, won't do it again,_" Vrinda muttered, edging away from him. She looked back over to Priscilla, who was wiping her eyes with a tissue Kari produced. "_You okay?_"

"Y-yeah," the girl sniffed, sounding more like she had three years ago. "B-but I j-just hope Fang's gonna be okay, too."

---

"Thanks for lending me Cloud 'n Elizabeth," Priscilla said as she handed a luxury ball and a Johto lure ball back to Kari. "They were really great against Winona."

"Hey, I'm just glad you actually won this time. I _told_ you using Lakshmi was a bad idea - your friend's swellow did fine."

"Swift is _my_ swellow," Priscilla retorted, slumping down next to Kari on the lower bunk bed. They managed to get a double room instead of a triple or quad, sparing both girls the added roommate experience. "I caught him as a taillow, but even though Haley uses him now, he's technically _my_ swellow."

Kari shrugged. "But the only reason you got him for this battle was because Haley's, like, your best friend. That principle lady wouldn't have let you take him otherwise."

"Whatever. I barely had to use him. Sting 'n Cloud did most of the work," Priscilla said, holding up her tentacruel's pokeball. "Sting is _awesome _with his poison-type attacks."

"Yeah, yeah. So, um, what're we gonna do now? Head down south? It's a really long way to Lilycove, and it's already July. _Late _July," she added, tossing her hair and snatching a compact mirror out of her black purse. Flicking it open, Kari proceeded to adjust her eyeliner - ever since they arrived in the city, Kari went back to putting on makeup and less travel-oriented jewelry, along with wearing more designer labels. Priscilla hated it, especially since all she had were the same shorts and t-shirts she had for the road. "And we all know whose fault _that_ is."

"Shut up! Just 'cause you beat Winona the first time doesn't mean I'm a bad trainer! Jeeze, you're just as bad as Nate."

"Who is Nate?" Kari asked as she returned her eyeliner pencil and picked up her shimmery lip gloss. "You mention him, like, all the time."

Priscilla's breath stopped in her throat as she thought back to Nate. She hadn't gotten more than a text message from him all summer - where was he? "Um, he's - he's just my rival."

"'Just'?"

"Ummm...yeah. Just my rival. I don't know why you're making a big deal out of it."

"Me? I'm just asking who he is. You're the one who said the 'just'."

For some odd reason, Priscilla felt her cheeks start to heat up. "N-nothing! It's nothing! He's just one of my best friends, okay? And my rival. I just want to know how he's doing, since he broke his leg, 'n all. We were gonna travel together to Fortree City, but he broke his leg. That's, um, that's why I asked to travel with you, you know. Since he couldn't. Because he broke his leg."

"Yeah, you already said _twice_ that he broke his leg. And five billion times before that," the older girl drawled between applying layers of lip gloss. "But I'm glad to know I'm his _replacement._"

"Aw, Kari, I don't mean it like that," Priscilla said, briefly leaning against her friend. The light shoulder-shove knocked Kari's lip gloss wand off her lips, leaving a trail of pink on her cheek. Priscilla giggled when Kari glared at her. "Lipstick face!"

"Freak."

"You're a freak!"

"No, you are," Kari snapped as she began fixing her 'lipstick face'. "So, what are you going to do about Fang?"

This shot Priscilla's good mood right away. She sighed, staring down at the floor. "I - I don't know. I mean, it's gonna be ages before I get over to Mossdeep for the seventh badge - and I was gonna use him for that. I mean, he's a dark-type, so he's got a type advantage...but..."

"But every time you open his pokeball, he tries to rip your neck open," Kari finished, going back to fixing her lip gloss.

"You could sound a little more concerned when you say that, you know."

"Whatever. Listen, you want to get all eight badges by the time you're fifteen-and-a-half, right? That's what you said, right?"

"Yeah, um," Priscilla began, thinking back to a time when she accidentally said more than she wanted during a late night under the stars. "I want to get them all before my sixteenth birthday, just 'cause, but, um, since the season ends in the summer...I gotta get them before that summer ends. The summer when I'm fifteen. Yep. That's, um, that's it."

Kari eyed her questioningly, causing the younger girl to look away. "Oookay. Well, that leaves you two more summer seasons, right?"

"Um, right."

"So, if you want, that could just be, like, one badge per season. You don't need to rush that much, especially if you do more hardcore training during the off-season."

"So?" Priscilla asked, turning back to face Kari.

The older girl shrugged, causing her golden loop earrings to jangle. "So use this time to get good. _Really_ good. Mightyena are supposed to 'never disobey the commands of a skilled trainer', or something like that. It was online. Basically, if you become 'skilled', or whatever, then Fang might not want to kill you anymore."

Priscilla sighed. "But I have six badges already! What more does he want?"

"Dunno. You figure that out. Anyway, I'm gonna go into town and see if there are any cute handcrafted necklaces for sale. Wanna come?"

"Nah, you go. I'll stay."

"Suit yourself. Goldsmith! Let's go."

Priscilla watched as the silent kadabra followed his fashionable trainer out of the door, leaving her by herself in the Pokemon Center bedroom.

She sighed, pulling out Fang's pokeball, careful not to open it. Holding it in the golden beam of afternoon sunlight coming in from the window, she watched as the red top of the pokeball began to glint in various shades of yellow-orange. "What happened, Fang?" she whispered, trying to remember back to the happy little poochyena the pokeball used to hold.

Yawning, she flopped down on the bed, staring at his pokeball until she fell asleep.

---

_"Well, aren't you a prodigious little girl," Lady Virgillia said as Priscilla opened her eyes. She sat in that same red throne-style chair she sat in the last time she found Virgillia's mansion, inside the same parlor._

_Across from her stood the same woman with the same purple ball gown and the same red gem necklace, with the same espeon at her feet._

_"What - what's going on?" Priscilla gasped, jumping to her feet. "Where - where am I? Why am I here? Wasn't I just in the Pokemon Center?" She glanced down, looking for her backpack. It wasn't there. "Where're my pokemon?"_

_"My, my, don't we have a lot of questions today," the woman drawled, taking a few steps forward. "Aren't you going to ask anything interesting, little girl? After all, even trespassing in my manor during your dreams is as inconsiderate as trespassing in person."_

_"I'm - I'm dreaming?"_

_The espeon, Mara, glared at her, and Lady Virgillia cackled with laughter. "A smart girl! So smart, so smart. Now," she began, smiling evilly. "Why don't you answer one of _my_ questions, little girl. Where is Zenith?"_

_"I - I don't kn-know," Priscilla stammered, a chill sweeping over body and panic beginning to choke her throat. "I - I've never -"_

_"Oh, you know where he is, you just don't know what he looks like," she snapped, walking over and putting a hand in Priscilla's hair. She pulled it down, forcing Priscilla's face up to look her in the eyes. "Tell me where Zenith is."_

_"E-evergrande City," Priscilla found herself saying, though she could have sworn her brain told her voice to stay quiet. "Behind the waterfall, about halfway up."_

_Lady Virgillia released the girl's hair, a twisted grin on her dark face. "Wonderful," she hissed. "Now, how about I give you something in return? A piece of information I'm sure you're just dyyying to know."_

_Priscilla gulped as the Lady leaned closer, her breath cold on Priscilla's left ear._

_"Liang Chen," she whispered. "Fallarbor Town. He betrayed you."_

_The last thing Priscilla saw before her world turned upside down was Mara's cold eyes and even colder red gem, both emanating a feeling of distaste and impatience. When Mara, Lady Virgillia, and the rest of their mansion faded away, Priscilla could have sworn she saw a light green gem replace Mara's, along with the sound of wedding bells ushering away Virgillia's cackling laughter._

_But as soon as she understood why the green gem and wedding bells were related, everything was gone._

---

"You don't have to come with me, you know," Priscilla said as she and Kari walked along the mountain desert roads of Fallarbor Town. "I don't even know how I know this guy."

"It's not like I have anything better to do," Kari said with a shrug. "I mean, it's practically the off-season."

Ahead of them walked a tall, fifteen-year-old Indian boy, a spinda staggering alongside him. When Priscilla ran into Amar Pradesh in the Fallarbor Pokemon Center, she expected to just have a fun pickup battle against a more experienced trainer and maybe make a new friend.

What she _hadn't_ expected for him to say was that Liang Chen was his step-father. He even invited Priscilla and Kari over, saying that his parents were accustomed to him and his younger sister, Leela, bringing friends home from their training journeys.

They finally reached the house in question, a medium-sized, hardy mountain-type house with a blue roof and red door. "Well, this is it," Amar said, taking out a key. "I dunno what you want with Liang, but he's usually home around now."

Priscilla nodded, turning around and returning Vrinda, who had been trailing behind them with Goldsmith during their walk from the Pokemon Center. If Liang turned out to be dangerous, she didn't want him to know what her best pokemon was.

She then followed Amar into the house, standing rigidly in the family room. "I'll go see if Liang is in the computer room," Amar said, gesturing to the couch. "You can sit there," he told them, pointing to the cushion next to a snoozing delcatty. "That's Mala, by the way. She's really sweet - she was my mom's training pokemon."

Kari immediately sat down next to the sleepy cat, cooing over her soft fur. Priscilla ignored the couch and the delcatty, choosing to remain standing near Kari's aloof kadabra.

After an eternity, she heard three sets of footsteps from around the corner hallway, and she bent her knees, pushing her body into a discreet fighting stance.

When the unfamiliar man rounded the corner, followed by Amar and a woman she assumed to be Amar's mother, Priscilla felt ready to fight him off if the need came.

But he didn't look hostile when he saw her - just surprised. Scared, in fact.

The woman, on the other hand, turned immediately from a pretty, warm-looking, middle-aged woman to a snarling warrior. "Get out," she snapped, her brown eyes shooting daggers into Priscilla. "Get out, you little piece of fascist, whorish Sinnohan filth."

Kari shrieked as Mala the delcatty lunged out from underneath her arms, growling and advancing on Priscilla, her mouth open and about to release a hyper beam.

---

Author's Note: In case you're wondering why I'm uploading two chapters at once, it's because I'm moving tomorrow. It's a pretty major move for me, and I know I'll be really busy for the next couple weeks. So I will be taking at least a two-week hiatus from posting, though it will probably be more (and by "more", I mean like, for most of the rest of the year). I tend to not do much fanfic-writing during the school year, and I just don't know what my schedule's going to be like...so I'm really sorry, but we're all going to have to take a bit of a break from this story.

But I promise that I will finish Poltergeist's, and once I hit winter break, I will definitely post a lot of updates to make up for missed ones during the fall! And don't assume I won't be posting at all until winter break - I'll probably end up writing a couple chapters here and there, so I'll be sure to post them. (And if you're reading on deviantArt, then you should know that I plan to switch to posting chapters here first, on .)

So yeah...sorry for the horribly long author's note, but I felt it was fair to warn you about my upcoming lack of updates. I hope you're enjoying the story so far, and I hope you don't disappear when I go back to updating regularly. :)


	37. Father

Chapter 37: Father

"I know you want me to die," Lady Virgillia said as she stepped out into the chilly evening air. "You aren't exactly discreet in that."

"_I have no such wishes,_" Mara stated monotonously, trailing behind.

The dark woman smiled, showing her gleaming white teeth. "You're ly-ing, Mara."

"_If you are under the impression that I want to kill you, you are mistaken._"

"I never said you wanted to kill me. That would be counterproductive. But I am _quite_ sure you would not cry if I rejoined the dead."

"_I rarely cry, Virgillia._"

"Heh," Lady Virgillia brushed her fingers along the red necklace around her neck, "oh, but you did once."

Mara's red gem flashed in the night as she growled, "_never speak of that!_"

"Temper, temper."

Lady Virgillia did not flinch when all of the trees around her suddenly toppled over, torn apart by the invisible forces of Mara's advanced psychic mind. Nor did she seem to care when, as a result of the sudden felling of ten trees, she heard the sickening crunching of innocent bones. "_Do you wish to say anything else? Or am I allowed to speak, now?_"

"I did not know you needed my permission to speak, Mara," Virgillia said as she bent down to examine the bloody feathers of a taillow. The rest of its body, she assumed, lay underneath the felled pine. "But speak, by all means."

"_Why did you tell the girl to go to Fallarbor Town?_" Mara hissed, her split tail lashing back and forth in frustration. "_Why do you feel such a desire to interfere with her?_"

"Oh, just to keep her in the west," the woman said, beginning to chuckle. "So that when our enemy goes to the east, he will not find her. I want to keep her alive for now - heheheh - so that she may fall all the harder when she returns to Sinnoh."

Mara snorted, looking out over the ocean from their Lilycove bluff vantage point. "_Your dislike of humans and your games with them are amusing, though a pointless waste of time._"

Virgillia just laughed.

---

Priscilla was not happy.

This was the _second_ time she had to go to a hospital emergency room, and this time she was conscious for the entire time.

Even though the last time she needed urgent care she almost froze to death, at least she was unconscious for the worst of it.

That was not the case with the "delcatty incident", as she overheard one of the ER nurses call it. Since all that happened to her was a set of deep cuts on her arm (that hurt like no other), she had no reason to slip unconscious during the attack.

Actually, during the attack, she managed to fend off the delcatty rather well. When the delcatty, Mala, jumped at her, Priscilla knew to kick her in the stomach. Mala bounced back and went in for another attack, which Priscilla blocked with an intermediate-level arm block.

She would have been able to block Mala a third time had Liang Chen not shouted her real name.

Hence the cuts in her arm.

"We're going to stitch this up," the doctor told her as they wheeled her in, "you might need a transfusion, too."

If Priscilla's left arm hadn't felt like it was on fire, she would have sighed.

Life just wasn't going well.

---

"Yeah, so, um, I feel really awkward right about now," Kari mumbled as she followed the rest of Liang Chen's family into the waiting room. Tensions between Liang Chen and his wife seemed high, and their present child didn't seem all that calm, either.

The child in question, Amar Pradesh, glared at Kari. "Awkward? Really? That's what you'd use to describe this?"

"Um...yeah. It's pretty awkward."

Amar sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I had no idea. I mean, I know my mom and Liang got in a really bad fight when I was little, but I didn't know..."

"Not sure Shannon - er, Priscilla, I guess - knew, either."

"Yeah...man. Just - man..."

They sat down near the back of the waiting room, staring at the backs of Liang and Divya, who stood closer to the doors to the ER. No pokemon were out, as to comply with the hospital's rules, and Kari mindlessly played with Goldsmith's pokeball in her hands. "So..."

"What am I gonna tell Leela?" Amar muttered, then groaned. "What am I gonna tell _Khan_?"

"Who?"

"Leela's my younger sister," Amar explained with unenthusiastic hand motions, "and Khan's my half-brother. Leela and I aren't related to Liang, since we're from Mom's first marriage, but Khan's dad is Liang. Which means...like...ugh. I dunno, man."

Kari nodded, flicking her hair back and adjusting one of her earrings. "So, uh, I guess your mom kinda hates Shannon. Er, Priscilla, I mean."

The boy next to her shrugged, looking away. "Well, yeah, but she didn't mean for Mala to just attack her like that."

"Ah. So she's, like, feeling guilty about it, or something?"

"Well...yeah." Amar raised an eyebrow and gave Kari a once-over. "What did you say your name was, again?"

Kari flashed him a pearly-white grin. "I didn't, but I'm Karishma Singh. Kari for short."

"I'm -"

"Amar Pradesh. I know."

"Right," Amar mumbled, leaning away from the girl. "Where are you from?"

"Pacifidlog Town."

He nodded. "Oh, cool." Then, to himself, he added: "isolated psychopaths."

---

"_You are a lucky little girl," Lady Virgillia hissed, bending down over Priscilla's head from behind her hospital bed. Of course, while Priscilla and her hospital bed were the same as they were in Fallarbor Town, everything around them had gone from being the Fallarbor Town Urgent Care's emergency room to the parlor in Virgillia's mansion._

_Priscilla wasn't sure which was worse: that she was having another Virgillia dream so soon or that she was strapped to the bed, unable to move._

_She could talk, though, and she did. "Why am I here?" she snapped._

"_Because you're not done giving me information, 'Shannon Nguyen'," purred the Lady, leaning her chin on her hands. "Or, as I'm sure the rest of Liang Chen's family knows - 'Priscilla Vo'."_

"_Sh-shut up! That's not my name!"_

"_Silence!" Lady Virgillia snapped. Immediately, Priscilla felt a searing pain run through her body, and when she looked down to the side, she saw Mara glaring up at her. "If you lie again, I shall have Mara do more than just tug at your veins and arteries - I'll have her rip them out."_

_Priscilla took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to whimper._

"_Now, Shannon, tell me. Once you give the sunset to Zenith, what do you plan on doing?"_

_Priscilla opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. She swiveled her eyes to look at Lady Virgillia in a vague attempt to figure out what sort of answer the Lady wanted, so she could at least tell her what she wanted to hear - but no luck. Lady Virgillia looked back at Priscilla with a stony glare, devoid of any helpful information._

"_I...I don't know," Priscilla said, though it sounded weak to her. Of course she _knew_. She had to go back to Sinnoh and save her mother. Wasn't that why she left in the first place? When she could feel the silence and Lady Virgillia's anticipation growing too thick, she quickly added: "I'd go back to Sinnoh and save my mom. That's why I'm going to Zenith. To save my mom."_

_Lady Virgillia's eyes narrowed. "Is that all?"_

"_...Yes."_

"_Are you quite sure?" the woman added. "There isn't anyone you've forgotten?"_

_Priscilla paused, then nodded. "I, um, I don't think I forgot anybody," she said, though she wasn't really sure what she meant by it._

_The cold Lady stood up and turned away. "You are of no use to me," she said in a tone of voice different from what Priscilla had heard from her before. "Mara, please get her out of my sight."_

_And with a flash of light from the red jewel on Mara's forehead, the world around Priscilla winked out of existence._

_---_

"You just need to learn to listen to him," Divya said as she and Priscilla watched Fang and Mala chase each other around the yard. It had been a couple days since the mightyena had stopped attacking people on first look, and while he had yet to act nice towards anyone, at least he was playing again.

Priscilla almost felt like she had part of her friend back - sometimes when he played with Divya's delcatty, the only one in the entire Chang household who could stand up to the hyena's violent impulses, Fang seemed like his old fun-loving self. "Did Mala freak out a lot when she evolved?" Priscilla asked, looking over at her step-mother.

Divya smiled awkwardly, brushing a hair out of her eyes and then noticing one of Priscilla's hairs had flown out from behind her hair band - she reached over and pushed it behind her step-daughter's ear. "A little. Not as bad as your mightyena must have, but it was a rough time for both of us. That is buried deep in the past, though, and we have long since moved on."

The teenage girl bit her lip. "So, does that mean..."

"It isn't buried in the past yet," the Hoennese woman said grimly, looking away from the Sinnohan girl. "It will be a long time before we can forget about how you were conceived."

"My mom's not a whore," Priscilla spat.

"I did not say she was," Divya said, standing up. "She is just a woman who made a mistake, just like Liang and I made mistakes when we had our argument. It is our job now to try and atone for our mistakes. Ah - Liang," she said as a man stepped outside to join them on the porch. "I'll leave you two alone." And with that, Divya disappeared back into the house.

The man sat down next to his daughter, keeping more distance from her than Divya had. "Fang's getting better," he noted, unable to look Priscilla in the eye.

"Yeah." Across the rocky field, Mala had just tacked Fang to the ground after he accidentally sent a shadow ball her way. "A lot of stuff is getting better."

"Your arm?"

"Yeah. And, um, me and, uh, Divya."

"Ah," Liang said, glancing back towards the house. "Good."

They were silent. And then - "D-dad?" Priscilla asked, the word still sounding strange on her tongue even after staying the entire off-season with him.

"What?"

"Do you, um, do you think Mom - um, my mom, not...not Divya - do you think she'll be okay?" Priscilla asked. Months ago, when Liang had visited her in the hospital after Mala cut open her arm, it was the first thing she told him - that Amelia Vo was sick with Poltergeist's Disease. Over the course of the next few months, as it sunk in for Liang that he had another child to look after, it also sunk in that the woman he had a brief affair with might not make it to see Sinnoh reopen itself to the world.

But he had responsibilities as a father, and one of those was to keep his children hopeful. He smiled, reached over, and ruffled Priscilla's hair, just as if she were his son from Divya. "Of course," he said, sounding more confident than he felt. "She'll be fine. She's got you, after all."

Even though it still felt awkward to treat her as if he'd been her father for her whole life, Priscilla's smile was worth it.

---

"I need to go check something," Kari said as she and Priscilla opened the door to their room in the Mossdeep City Pokemon Center. "And I need to check it outside."

Priscilla blinked. "Um, okay," she said with a shrug, tossing her backpack over to Vrinda. "Meet you in the cafeteria for dinner?"

"Yeah. Here," Kari added, leaving her pokeballs on the bottom bunk bed and motioning for Goldsmith to stay with Vrinda. "I'll leave my pokemon with you, okay? Just take 'em in for a routine healing and check up - you know, the usual."

"Sure," Priscilla said as she began to tug off her salty wetsuit and outer layer of waterproof clothing in preparation for a long overdue shower. "See you later."

Kari waved goodbye to Priscilla and avoided eye contact with Goldsmith, then walked out of the Pokemon Center as fast as possible. Once she was outside, she took out her cell phone and dialed the number for the private phone of the Viridian City Gym in Kanto.

"Hello?" a woman's voice said on the other end.

"Hello, Beatrice," Kari said, a scared smile spreading across her face. "It's been awhile."

---

Author's Note:

Hello, readers. It's been awhile. So...yes, I'm finally updating again. Now that I'm on winter break, I'll have a little more time to write, and hopefully next quarter I won't be quite as busy. Please forgive me if the next few chapters are a bit choppy - I picked a bad time to take a hiatus, since I need to push the story forward while also getting reacquainted with my characters.

Oh, and if you're still reading this - thank you so much for sticking with Poltergeist's and not giving up on me. More updates are on the way, and I hope you enjoy them. :)


	38. To Sootopolis

Chapter 38: To Sootopolis

"This is making me really nervous," Priscilla whispered to Kari as they stood facing a referee. "This is such a weird way to do a gym battle."

Priscilla saw Kari shrug out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't dare turn her head to give her friend (and current battling partner) a better look. After all, turning to be able to see the battlefield would have disqualified both of them from their Mossdeep City Gym battle.

Behind them on the battlefield Priscilla could hear a mightyena and a shiftry starting to face off against a solrock and a lunatone - she just couldn't see them.

"Keep them from moving too much!" Kari yelled next to her, and Priscilla wondered if Kari actually knew whether or not the solrock/lunatone combination was moving around a lot, or if she was just shouting general orders to her shiftry, Seamus.

"Try and go for their eyes, Fang!" Priscilla shouted, not wanting Kari to be the only one giving orders.

She couldn't hear Tate or Liza saying anything, though, and that made her doubly as nervous. She had no idea how the battle was going - Solrock and Lunatone didn't make much noise, so all she had to go off of was how Fang and Seamus seemed to be doing (based on their grunts, growls, and shrieks of pain) or the sounds of various things smashing into other things.

Looking at the face of the referee on the opponents' side didn't help much - he, just like the other people working at the Mossdeep gym, didn't show much emotion on his face.

Priscilla decided she didn't really like the Mossdeep City Gym much, and that she hoped she and Kari were going to win that battle just so she wouldn't ever have to come back for a rematch. While she was at it, she also hoped for a magical bottle of painkillers to appear, since not only was the rampant psychic energy of the gym giving her a headache, but she also had monthly cramps.

Behind her, she heard Fang howling, but she couldn't tell if it was good or bad. "Hang in there, Fang!" she said, looking carefully at the ref. He was a middle-aged man with the standard receding hairline and soft wrinkles, and, more importantly, he wasn't saying anything about her mightyena being unable to battle. That meant that while Fang sounded like he was in pain, it wasn't knocking him out.

Which was all Priscilla could really hope for, anyway.

"You doing okay?" Kari said in a low tone of voice, also not looking away from the referee.

"I would be if I could see something happening," Priscilla said back, shifting her weight a little. Even though she would always stand in one spot back in Sinnoh, she'd gotten used to dynamic gym battles in Hoenn. At her last gym battle, the one in the Fortree forest canopy, she'd been jumping around amongst the tree branches and had even briefly engaged in an airborne battle. Now she was standing still, listening to her Hoenn starter do battle behind her, and the lack of movement hurt. What she would have done to punch something...

Next to her, Kari sighed. "You're nervous. That's not good. It helps them," she said, "the psychics. They like nervous opponents."

"Well, tell them that I can't help it," Priscilla snapped, making sure to _not_ turn around and glare at her partner. The battle was already bad enough - she did _not_ need a disqualification and the following rematch. She just wanted _out_, so she could get her Shoal Cave pokemon-catching expedition - which she dreaded due to the temperature and the caves themselves, both of which reminded her of unpleasant Darcy-related memories - and get down to Sootopolis City.

After all, it was late June already. She had until early September to get her final badge from the Sootopolis City Gym, and it _had_ to be this season...

Because in a little over four months, the cage around Sinnoh would disappear, and she _had_ to be back there when it happened with whatever she needed from Zenith.

"It's 'cause of Jujhar, isn't it?"

"Wha -?" Priscilla started, but shut up when the referee she'd been staring at for the past however-long-it-had-been held up a flag. She sucked in her breath. Someone had been knocked out - but she hadn't been paying enough attention to figure out who it was.

"Solrock is unable to battle," the other referee, the one across the field who Tate and Liza faced, said over a loudspeaker.

Priscilla sighed, her heart still racing. That was good - they outnumbered Lunatone, and Solrock had more of an advantage against them, anyway, what with its fire attacks going up against Seamus's grass-type.

As she heard the battle behind her resume, she also heard Kari talk again: "As I was saying before we got interrupted by our owning of Solrock, is your current weirdness because of Jujhar?"

"I don't know," Priscilla mumbled, trying not to think about him. "I mean, it's been, like, three days already."

Out of the corner of her eye, Priscilla saw Kari shrug. "Yeah, but he was your first boyfriend. You guys went out for over a month. That's pretty good for, like, high schoolers. And you seemed to really like him."

Priscilla sniffled. Now that Kari _really_ brought up Jujhar, one of the four other trainers who traveled with her and Kari across the ocean route from Lilycove to Mossdeep, she kind of wanted to cry. He _was_ her first boyfriend, like Kari said, and he _was_ really cool. Really fun to be with, really cute, really good with pokemon and an awesome training partner, really easy to talk to, really...

Really good at kissing.

Or, at least, that's what Priscilla assumed. He kissed her twice, and she liked it both times, but they were the only two times she'd ever been kissed.

But still.

He was her first (and second) kiss...and had dumped her three days ago.

But a sickening thud brought her out of that funk, and she saw the referee old up his flags - and open his mouth. Before he even said it, Priscilla knew it was bad. The referee on their side would only say something if Fang or Seamus had been knocked out.

"Mightyena is unable to battle!"

Now Priscilla _really_ wanted to cry. She began to turn her head to look at her fallen mightyena, but a shout from Kari stopped her. "Don't turn! If Seamus beats Lunatone, we both still win, so don't be an idiot and get us both disqualified."

So Priscilla bit her lip and waited. Kari seemed to have everything under control.

"Seamus!" Kari called out next to Priscilla. "Ready to end this?"

"_Of course I am!_" he yelled back after what sounded like a block to a physical attack from Lunatone.

Priscilla gasped as a huge, circular gust of wind slammed against her back, knocking her forward a little and causing her to stumble. It took all her willpower to avoid turning to look at what was happening behind her - but she didn't have to think very hard to guess when she saw all the leaves that had landed in front of her.

Seamus was using leaf storm, an attack she knew he and Kari had been working on for weeks.

"Again! To the wall - let's see this thing!"

Seamus grunted, and then Priscilla shrieked as a huge, leaf-covered, moon-shaped rock flew by her and into the gym wall. The wall crumbled a bit behind it, but Priscilla could see a faint glow holding it mostly intact - someone working in the gym obviously wanted to save on property damage costs, though the lack of damage to the wall probably helped quicken the lunatone's defeat. (Priscilla noticed more of Lunatone's body had crumbled than she thought, but since nobody seemed to be rushing to give it medical attention, she assumed it wasn't a big deal.)

The referee on their side looked a little stunned, but raised his flags anyway. "Lunatone is unable to battle," the referee from the leaders' side said over the loudspeaker. "Match goes to the challengers."

Priscilla finally turned around to see a panting shiftry standing near a crumpled, unconscious mightyena and a very still solrock. She dashed over, whipping out Fang's pokeball and zapping him inside as quickly as she could. Despite his immunity to psychic attacks, he hadn't seemed to fare too well against the rock-type physical attacks from Solrock and Lunatone, and before he went back into his pokeball, Priscilla saw that one of his legs was sticking out at an odd angle.

"His leg's broken," she whispered to herself, half in awe. Nobody on her team had suffered any serious injuries in a gym battle before. Sure, there was that time when her linoone's eye had gotten gauged out by a wild gloom, but that wasn't in an official battle, or anything.

"Good job," she heard Tate say. She looked up to see the twins standing over her, Liza extending her hand to help Priscilla up.

"Thanks for letting us battle this way," Liza said as she pulled her opponent up.

"It's been a long time since the League changed the battling rules," Tate began to explain.

"...And we missed standard double battles."

"So thanks for letting us go until both pokemon on one side were defeated..."

"...Even if it was our side!"

"No problem," Kari said as she returned her shiftry and joined Priscilla on the center of the battlefield. "It was a good battle. I don't mean to be rude, or anything, but can we get our badges? We kind of need to get to the Pokemon Center."

"Of course," Tate said, pulling out a Mind Badge and handing it to Kari as Liza did the same for Priscilla.

Priscilla took one look at the pink badge and her migraine began to throb. "You, uh, don't happen to have any painkillers, do you?"

---

"There's a dance tomorrow night?" Priscilla asked, pulling off her parka and taking a mental note of the pokemon she'd captured. Two spheals, one sealo, two golbats, and yet another wailmer. All that left was a snorunt...the very pokemon she'd spent three hours that day combing the deepest caverns of Shoal Cave without any luck.

She decided that she already hated the snorunt she would eventually have to capture, and that she never wanted to use it in battle. Ever. And no matter how powerful glalies were, she never wanted to go through the trouble of evolving it. Anything that made her spend too long in a cold cave didn't deserve life.

Kari grinned. "Yeah! The Pokemon Center's putting on a dance for everyone. So now you have something to look forward to after searching for a snorunt."

"Ugh, that's gonna be the _only_ thing I have to look forward to for tomorrow," Priscilla whined, flopping down on the bed next to Vrinda.

"_I don't understand why you hate Shoal Cave so much,_" Vrinda said curtly, rolling her feet to stretch her ankles. "_It's such a lovely temperature in there. Just like home._"

"Duh, that's why I hate it. You found me stranded in a blizzard, remember?"

"_Ah. Right. Clinging to Bliz for dear life,_" Vrinda said a little more fondly than Priscilla would have preferred.

Priscilla sighed, then straightened as she felt her cell phone vibrate. Pulling it out, she saw that she had a new text message: "'You still in Mossdeep? I'm going there for the weekend and I'll be there tomorrow'," she read, then scrolled down to see who it was from. "Oh my god, it's from Nate!"

"Who?" Kari asked as she blew on her freshly-painted pink fingernails.

"You remember, right? My rival, Nate?"

"Oh. Him. Yeah, I remember, we saw him briefly in Lilycove, right?"

"Yeah!" Priscilla said happily, then suddenly felt a wave of panic. "Oh my god, he's gonna be here for the dance!"

She stood up and dashed over to her backpack, rummaging through. Kari looked up from her manicure. "What are you doing?"

Priscilla abandoned her backpack and logged onto the computer's item storage system, scrolling down through her list of digitized items. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm looking for something to wear for tomorrow!"

"You mean the dance?"

"Uh-huh, I gotta look good for it."

"Um, why? Just wear that cute top you have with some nice shorts and you'll be fine," Kari said, rolling her eyes at Goldsmith and Vrinda, both of whom did not seem to understand Priscilla's sudden obsession with clothing. "And shouldn't you be more focused on finding a snorunt in a timely manner, anyway?"

Groaning, Priscilla abandoned the item storage system and began searching the internet for cheap dresses. "I'll find the snorunt. This dance is important!"

"_Shannon,_" Vrinda said, forgetting that she could use Priscilla's real name in the company of Kari and her team, "_I agree with Kari. I think you should -_"

"Shut up! What do you know?" Priscilla snapped, turning around to glare at her medicham. "You don't need to impress _Goldsmith_, you already got him."

Vrinda blushed and the alakazam next to her merely looked mildly uncomfortable. In their own, weird, psychic way, they had been in a relationship (of sorts) for the past three months. "_That's not what I meant - and that has nothing to do with this! I think that you look fine, and you should focus on catching a snorunt so we can leave soon._"

"But I need to be here for this whole weekend," Priscilla whined.

"_Why? Because Nate's going to be here?_"

"Yes!"

Vrinda sighed. "_I don't think Nate's a good rebound, Shannon._"

"WHAT?"

"She's got a point," Kari said as she turned her attention to her toenails, which she began to paint the same shade of pink as her fingernails. "You're looking at him for an obvious boyfriend replacement. Look, I get it, okay? Breaking up with your first boyfriend is tough, and you want another boyfriend as soon as possible. But trust me, using a good friend as a rebound is _not _the way to go."

Priscilla stood up, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door. "_Where are you going?_" Vrinda asked.

"I'm going shopping. Without you. I think I'll bring Fang and Steel - _they_ still support me." And with that, she slammed the door behind her.

Kari shook her head. "First relationships. Nothing dignified about them."

"_Aren't you worried about her?_" Vrinda asked, debating whether or not she should teleport after her trainer. "_Don't you think we should follow her to make sure she's okay?_"

"Nah," Kari said as she wiggled her toes. "She'll come back. She has to. And besides, no matter what she thinks about Nate or whatever..." Kari smiled, and Vrinda noticed the normally expressionless Goldsmith narrow his eyes at his trainer. "I will always be her favorite."

---

"It's so good to see you!" Priscilla said as she gave Nate a squeeze. Somehow he'd grown taller than her in the months since she'd seen him last - now he stood just a hair taller than her.

Although he wasn't taller than her at that very moment, because she'd managed to find a pair of high-heeled shoes to wear to the dance, along with a standard "little black dress". Sure, she'd dropped more money than she'd hoped on the dress, shoes, and the necklace she wore...but the look on Nate's face when he saw her was more than worth it. The only thing that would have made it better was if Jujhar had been there to see her (and to see what he was now missing), but a quick check with some of their mutual friends confirmed that he had long moved on to Sootopolis.

His voice had also dropped. No amount of talking to him on the phone had prepared her to hear his new voice, totally unadulterated, for the first time.

He grinned back at her. "Shannon, I can't believe you just got your seventh badge _now."_

"Well, I can't believe you still haven't won your eighth," she said with an equal-sized grin. It felt so good to banter with him again! Like a part of her that had been missing was now whole. "You realize you're giving me a chance to catch up, right? Catch up and _beat you._"

Nate laughed. "Like that's gonna happen! Did you catch your snorunt yet? Because if you didn't catch one, you're gonna be stuck here forever, and you'll be light years behind me for beating Juan."

"Psh! I totally caught one!" Priscilla said, her voice dripping with victory. "It took forever, but I got one...and if you don't believe me, ask the 'Center nurse. She's - my snorunt, not the nurse - she's getting healed up right now with the rest of my frozen team."

"No way! That's so sick! What's her name?"

"Whisper."

"You gonna use her at all? 'Cause I'd definitely trade you for her," Nate said excitedly, almost spilling his cup of nonalcoholic punch over one of the girls next to them. The girls glared at them and walked back onto the dance floor to join the writhing group of trainers. "I'd kill for a glalie for the League. Those things are beasts."

"Dude, I wish," Priscilla said with a sigh, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. "I gotta send her back to Rustboro like everything else I catch. But," she added with a shy smile, "I could try and see if I can keep her in my reserves, so I might be able to trade her to you later...you know, if you wanted me to..."

Nate's face lit up. "Really? That would be awesome! I -"

"Hey."

Both Nate and Priscilla turned to see Kari standing next to them. Priscilla narrowed her eyes. "Kari, I didn't know you were gonna wear a dress to this thing..."

Kari smiled, brushing the back of her hand on the skirt of her (rather short) purple dress. Priscilla would have complimented her traveling companion on her outfit, but it only took one look at Kari to see that the older girl looked many times hotter than Priscilla did. No matter long Priscilla spent with her makeup and hair, it always came out looking contrived. But Kari, who never seemed to spend _that_ much time on her appearance, always looked stunning.

And _sexy._ Priscilla always looked too young to look _sexy,_ but Kari managed to pull it off just _fine._

Which really, really, _really_ bothered Priscilla, because she didn't even have to look at Nate to know that he thought Kari looked better than Priscilla.

"Hey, Shannon," Kari said, turning to her friend. "One of the guys said that the nurse wants you to come check up on your team. Something about frostbite."

Priscilla frowned, her stomach lurching. "Frostbite? Like, permanent damage?" She hadn't gotten hurt in the freezing dungeon that was Shoal Cave - it wouldn't have been fair to her pokemon if they had. Then again, Fang _had_ fallen in the water and Vrinda _had_ spent a really long time fighting on ice...

But Fang was furry and Vrinda was used to the weather. What could have gone wrong?

"I'll go check," Priscilla said as she headed for the door to the rec room. "Um, see you guys in a couple minutes."

As it turned out, Fang had gotten a bit of frostbite damage, but only to one of his forelegs and it was pretty minor. The nurse just wanted to give the others back and tell Priscilla that she wanted to keep Fang overnight, and that Priscilla should probably plan to stay in Mossdeep for an extra day just to be safe.

So, her fears mostly assuaged, Priscilla headed back to the dance, only to find the whole room consumed by a love song, many trainers coupling up to share a slow dance on the dance floor...

And, somewhat close to the middle, Kari and Nate with their arms around each other, swaying back and forth to the music.

Priscilla took a shaky step forward -

Just in time to see the two teens lean forward and press their lips together...

Priscilla felt as if a ton of bricks had just fallen on her. She couldn't move - she just stood there, staring as Kari and Nate kissed, looking so perfect together. She wanted to scream and cry and throw things and pummel Kari for stealing her rival, but nothing in her body seemed to work. All she could do was stand still and look shocked.

Luckily, she didn't have to do anything, because at that moment, Nate and Kari's mouths unlocked and Nate looked over to meet Priscilla's hurt gaze. "Sh-Shannon?" he said, sounding a little confused and more than a little embarrassed.

Kari blinked, shaking herself out of a daze as the song ended, and she wriggled out of Nate's arms and headed towards the younger girl. "Shannon," she said, holding out her arms as if to embrace her friend, "I'm really sorry, but -"

"You BITCH!" Priscilla hissed, spinning on her high heels (and almost falling) and stomping out of the room. She tried to run to the stairs, but she kept stumbling thanks to her inability to run in heels.

"Shannon, I don't understand why you're so upset," she heard Kari say from behind her. Priscilla just ignored her and fumbled her way up the stairs and through the hallway to their room. She slammed the room door behind her, forgetting for a second that she shared the room with the very girl she never wanted to see again.

But since she _was_ sharing the room with Kari, it only took a few seconds for Kari to open the door and close it behind her, leaving the two of them alone in the room together. (Or, rather, alone with Goldsmith, who had been meditating on the floor the entire time and barely noticed the two of them enter the room.) "Shannon, can we talk about this?"

"I don't want to talk to you!" Priscilla shrieked as she threw herself on the bed and buried her face into the pillow. She didn't care that her makeup was now smudged all over the white linens - she just wanted to hide her face from the world and cry. "Go away!"

Her body tensed as she felt Kari sit down on the bed beside her and put her hand on Priscilla's shoulder. "Just so I'm sure - you're angry because you saw me kissing Nate, right?"

Priscilla took her face away from the pillow just enough to glare at the other girl. "What do you _think?_"

Kari shrugged. "Just making sure. But, I mean, I know you had a crush on Nate...but you..." She trailed off, sighed, then tried again: "I just don't think Nate's a good match for you. Especially as a rebound."

"What do you know? You were _sucking face_ with him pretty willingly!"

"I never said he and I weren't a good match," Kari said with an indifferent shrug, "and we weren't 'sucking face' or making out or whatever. We were just kissing - like, one kiss."

"I don't care! You knew I had a crush on him," Priscilla sniffed, trying to pull herself away from Kari, "and you still went after him! That's, like, against the rules of being a _girl._"

Kari shook her head. "Sweetie, I was just doing what's best for you."

"I don't -" Priscilla stopped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Goldsmith straighten up and look over at the two of them. A voice in the back of her head told her that the only reason the alakazam would have broken out of his meditation would be if something suspicious happened. He'd only snap out of his psychic trance if something needed his immediate attention.

That meant either something Kari or Priscilla said required his immediate attention. Nothing she could think of that she'd said meant anything bad, since Goldsmith didn't really care about human romance drama...

Before she consciously realized it, Priscilla felt her stomach twist. It was a familiar sensation, but one she hadn't felt in...four years. "Kari, what did you just call me?" Priscilla asked, giving her "friend" a good look.

Especially her dress.

Kari shrugged. "I don't know. 'Shannon', since it's your name?"

"You know Shannon's not my name," Priscilla said, making fearful eye contact with Goldsmith, trying to send him "help me" thoughts without letting it show on her face. "Say my real name."

"Pris - Priscilla," Kari said.

She said it quickly.

Unnaturally quickly.

Like, Priscilla thought, as if she was trying to cover up her _normal_ way of saying it.

It might have been paranoia, but -

"Why is Nate such a bad match for me?"

Kari opened her mouth, but closed it as Goldsmith appeared next to her, holding one of his spoons next to the side of her skull. "_Answer her question,_" Goldsmith ordered, his thoughts cold in Priscilla's mind. "_Do not lie. I do not want to kill you, but I can destroy your mind easily and without remorse._"

His trainer smiled uneasily and tried to turn her head to look at her pokemon, but stopped when the spoon dug in too much into her right temple. "Don't you want to look at me when you betray me, Goldsmith?"

"_No. Answer Priscilla's question,_" he ordered.

Kari frowned, then smiled again, her eyes still looking as far towards her periphery as they could. "I was jealous," she said. "I had a crush, too."

"_Who were you jealous of?_"

"Nate."

It only took that moment of shock, disbelief, and disgust to loosen Goldsmith's grasp on the spoon and allow Kari to turn and look him in the eyes. Priscilla watched as the alakazam stiffened, though she couldn't really think of what it meant because Kari had basically just said that _she had a crush on Priscilla._

Which was shocking and gross and horrible and confusing and totally out of the blue and -

"I'm really embarrassed now," Kari said, mostly to Goldsmith. "Teleport us and all of my things and pokemon out of here, because I don't think I can face Pris - _Shannon, _anymore."

"_Of course._"

And a second later, Priscilla was alone in the room with only her whirling thoughts to keep her company.

---

"_She could have been lying,_" Sting said as he swam along Ocean Route 127. "_Hell, she could have been lying about any number of things._"

Priscilla sighed, hugging her wetsuit-covered legs to her chest. She sat on the jellylike head of her trusty tentacruel, a sort of powerhouse-by-accident she'd discovered when she'd done a school project comparing tentacools from different regions. Sting, the tentacool she'd captured near Slateport, had become her main subject, and she'd taken him on so many training escapades that he'd gotten stronger, anyway. Her project also gave her new appreciation for the "rat of the sea".

That, and tentacruels were really great as transportation. She rarely ever had to go in the water, which, even though she did have a wetsuit on, was really nice. Her hair survived the ocean journeys quite nicely.

"Yeah, but _what _was she lying about? What if she _wasn't_ lying about having a crush on me?"

"_I find it really weird that the crush-thing is what you're most worried about._"

"Um, hello? It's gross! And wrong!"

"_I suppose from an evolutionary perspective, or whatever, it is kinda 'wrong',_" Sting said into the ocean, his voice bubbling up from the water. "_But it's just her feelings - and that's if she was telling the truth. From what you said, it sounded kinda like she wanted her psychic to freak out about something, and it kinda did the trick, right?_"

Priscilla shrugged. "I guess...you don't think she's actually...you know..."

"_Dude, you know I always thought she was weird. But that coulda just been me, y'know?_"

"Yeah...and you didn't, you know, _know_ her."

Sting paused. "_Wait, which 'her' are we talking about? Wait -_" Sting paused, throwing his tentacles forward to stop himself. He drifted for a moment before pushing his face out of the water and rolling his eyes up to look at Priscilla. "_We got company._"

Priscilla frowned, climbing over to peer over the tentacruel's forehead into the watery depths of Hoenn's oceans. "What sort of company?" she asked, thinking back to the plastic-bag-covered book she had in her waterproof backpack and another reason why she'd been so interested in tentacools and tentacruels:

"_Nasu,_" _Pentyl had said as he slid his finger down the list page in the Grimoire, _"_and Hallas are both in the sea routes in the eastern half of this region. They are both pokemon that can be found in that area. If you run into trouble there - and I can almost guarantee that you will - make sure to look for red gems to help you. Nasu lives near the top of the sea, and Hallas, the bottom._"

It had been ages since she'd run into a haelliad, and she'd almost forgotten about them.

...Almost.

Priscilla held her breath as the water in front of them bubbled, a huge figure rising out of the water.

"_Hooooly shit,_" Sting breathed. "_That's one giant tentacruel._"

It was true - the pokemon in front of them, a tentacruel just like Sting, looked to be at least twice the size of Priscilla's surfer. And just like all the others, he had a glittering red jewel on his forehead, though his was almost the size of Priscilla's whole body.

"_Hello, Priscilla,_" the giant tentacruel boomed. Priscilla stood up on Sting's head, staring at the sea monster. "_My name is -_"

"Nasu," Priscilla finished, her voice squeaking a little more than she felt necessary. "You're a haelliad, one of the outsides."

"_Oh, you know who I am?_"

"Um, y-yeah, I guess I do."

Nasu blinked slowly, giving her a long look. "_And I got your name right? Priscilla?_"

"Y-yeah, that's, uh, that's my name."

"_I thought your name was Shannon,_" Sting whispered.

"I lied," Priscilla whispered back, though her eyes were still on the giant tentacruel haelliad in front of them. "Sorry."

"_No problem. Just making sure I wasn't forgetting your name, or whatever._"

"_Who is your tentacruel?_" Nasu asked as he floated closer. "_I don't believe we've been introduced._"

Priscilla exchanged an awkward glance with her own tentacruel. "Oh, uh, Nasu, this is Sting. Sting, um, that's Nasu. He's a haelliad."

"_Nice to meet you,_" Sting said loudly, waving a tentacle above water in a friendly gesture. Though, in a whisper, he added: "_What's a haelliad?_"

"I'll tell you later," Priscilla hissed back.

"Priscilla," the haelliad in front of them began, seemingly unaware of Priscilla and Sting's whispered dialogues, "does your tentacruel, Sting, know how to use the dive technique?"

"_Heheheh...funny story 'bout that..._"

"He's getting better at it," Priscilla said, kicking the jelly body of her pokemon lightly. "We've, um, we've been working on it..." She didn't add that it scared her to death to go more than a couple meters underwater with him, since sometimes he broke the breathable air bubble around her and forgot to recreate it.

Nasu sighed. "_We're still rather far from Sootopolis, which is where Hallas will be waiting for us. He might be able to meet us halfway if we hurry, but we still might not make it - your tentacruel would be the best one to get you underwater quickly._"

"Quickly?" Priscilla asked. "Are we in a rush?"

Immediately she felt stupid for asking, because a sudden explosion a hundred meters away seemed to answer her question for her. Sting shouted as the resulting wave slammed into them, and Nasu's long tentacles managed to block a shadowy creature from diving into Priscilla just in time.

"_Dive! Dive, get under water! Go!_"

"But -" Priscilla didn't have time to speak, because Sting pulled her down into the water.

As the water closed around her head, she went limp in Sting's tentacles, holding her breath as he raced along not too far from the surface.

She gasped as he resurfaced, still keeping her body half-submerged. Priscilla coughed a few times, and aside from her racing heartbeat, she felt fine.

"_Sorry,_" Sting said next to her, using a scared voice totally alien to the Sting she'd known for the past couple years. "_I panicked. I couldn't get the air bubble up -_"

"No, it's fine," Priscilla said as she squinted against the sun. In the distance she saw a giant tentacruel doing battle with a familiar shadowy creature - "It's that thing from Cianwood!" she gasped, having a flashback to the mountainside chase and the persian haelliad's death.

"_Priscilla!_"

Priscilla looked up to see a thin, twisted copy of the legendary suicune standing on the water next to her, looking back at her with a panicked expression. "B-Badr?"

"_Get underwater! Leave!_" he barked.

Before she could answer, a piercing cry broke through the ocean air, and all three of them looked over to see Nasu's body ripped in half, sinking below the ocean waves. Priscilla's head swam as Sting screamed in fright, beginning to panic once again.

"_I'll hold it off, you get underwater NOW,_" Badr ordered, tensing his back legs to run over to the victorious monster.

"No! You'll die!"

"_It doesn't matter - just go!_"

"But -"

"_Priscilla,_" Badr said, looking her straight in the eyes, "_don't let Beatrice down. She needs you._"

"But -"

The creature began to rush towards them.

"_She'll want you to meet her in the Sevii Islands once you finish what you came to Hoenn for,_" he growled. "_Now leave!_"

Priscilla felt Sting drag her under the surface, and a small air bubble formed around her head. As her tentacruel swam deeper and deeper, she craned her neck up, trying to see through the murky water towards the top.

It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she saw the surface turn red and a limp, doglike corpse drifting down...

But she soon had other things to worry about, as Sting yelled through the dark, heavy water that they were being followed.

---

Author's Note: Sorry if the single instance of swearing bothered any of you, but it was in dialogue and in character...also, just to reiterate something I've said before: Priscilla's views are not necessarily mine. Just because she is uncomfortable with homosexuality (due to being from a conservative country), it doesn't mean I am.

Also, I apologize if you hate shipping. This is a "shipping chapter", and Priscilla is at prime-time age for crushes and pining and whatnot. On the other hand, if you DO like shipping - just because I'm curious - do you support any Poltergeist's pairings at this point? Tell me! I want to know. :)


	39. Eligibility

Chapter 39: Eligibility

Priscilla gasped as Sting suddenly stopped, something having grabbed onto one of his tentacles. She glanced behind her and screamed, though nobody would have heard thanks to the water muffling her.

A large, misshapen monster had grabbed onto Sting with a strange conglomeration of a hand and a single claw. Priscilla couldn't see much of it due to the darkness of the deep ocean, but she could see a wide, unsmiling mouth that took up most of the monster's blueish face...

Which reminded her of Darcy and her wide grins, though Priscilla was sure the monster about to kill her and her tentacruel wasn't Darcy.

Then again...way back when, she used to think Darcy was just a misdreavus, and she'd been _really_ wrong about that.

"Get away!" Priscilla yelled, kicking out against the monster but coming up short and whacking Sting instead. The monster just laughed and reached out to her -

But instead of hurting her, it shrieked and let go of the tentacruel. A sparkle-death-ray Priscilla vaguely recognized as an underwater hyper beam had slammed into it, effectively knocking it off Priscilla's ride and allowing them to shoot farther underwater and into a thick, ocean-bottom kelp forest of sorts.

Priscilla could feel her oxygen stores shrink due to Sting's panic, but she had enough for the foreseeable future, even if it was getting a little harder to breathe. She looked up through the kelp-like plants, peering through the darkness to try and catch a glimpse of the monster that had followed her all the way from Sunset Mountain. As she squinted against the murky water, she thought she saw something writhing far above...

"_Priscilla?_"

And just like that, her eyes unfocused from the mass above, and she had to keep herself from screaming as a smaller creature approached her from the side. Whipping her head around as fast as she could manage while underwater (and trying not to panic her tentacruel anymore by accidentally kicking him in the face), she turned to see a large rock fish staring back at her with squinty eyes.

Though it was dark near the bottom of the ocean, her eyes locked immediately onto the dirty red gem near the fish's forehead. "H-Hallas?" Her voice bubbled as she guessed at the fish's name.

She must have gotten it right, as the fish nodded. "_Yes. And you are Priscilla?_"

"Yes."

Hallas swam over to face her exhausted tentacruel. "_What is your name?_"

"_Sting,_" the giant jelly wheezed, trying to catch his breath. "_You're another one of those weird things Shannon's chasin', right?_"

The fish tilted his head to the girl. "_Shannon?_"

"My alias," she tried to say, though it was hard to talk underwater.

Hallas seemed to understand her well enough, because he sort of nodded and shrugged it off. "_I've heard of much stranger things. In any case, I assume you want to reach Sootopolis City. Is that correct?_" When Priscilla opened her mouth to speak, he added: "_A simple nod yes or shake of the head no will suffice._"

She nodded.

"_Very well,_" the fish said, swimming up to Priscilla and tapping her cheek with his. Priscilla felt a rush of oxygen as a new air bubble appeared around her body, surrounding Sting's and allowing her to breathe normally. "_I can take the two of you into Sootopolis._"

Priscilla looked over at Sting, holding onto one of his tentacles and looking at the exhausted, ragged look he gave her back. "Should I recall Sting?" she asked, hoping the fish understood her underwater voice.

"_You could, but I wouldn't recommend it. It would be smart to have him follow along in case I collapse too early, and I cannot take you to the surface once we enter the crater._"

The girl nodded, then stopped. "In case you collapse...too _early?_"

Hallas turned his body slightly, allowing Priscilla to see his side. She gasped. All along his rocky fish-skin were red, sticky, bleeding sores. "_Unfortunately, I am rather old, and I became ill last spring. My immune system is not what it used to be, and fighting with the monster who just attacked did not help. I may be injured a little,_" he added a bit sheepishly, swishing one of his stoney fins in the water. Priscilla noticed a bleeding cut and tried to keep from swooning or throwing up underwater, neither of which seemed like good ideas. "_And I predict the wound might get infected. If it does, then my immune system might fail to fight it, and I will die._"

"Um," Priscilla started, accidentally gulping in salt water, not certain how to respond. Hallas' matter-of-fact-ness caught her a bit off guard...

And it wasn't even like she _knew_ Hallas. They weren't friends. She'd only just met him, and although he did just save her life, they had no other real contact point other than that.

But it still made her sad to see someone on the verge of dying, even if it was primarily from old-age-related complications.

"_You should go into Sootopolis. It is not very healthy for humans to stay under deep waters for so long,_" Hallas said, beginning to drift away. "_You will be safe on the island, and I believe you will be able to accomplish whatever goals you came here with. Zenith is waiting for you, after all._"

"Is Zenith in Sootopolis?" Priscilla asked, confused. "I thought he was -"

"_In Evergrande, yes. I did not mean he was in Sootopolis. I apologize for confusing you._"

"No, um, that's fine." The girl looked down at her jellyfish steed's body, hugging herself to the squishy creature. "Um, should I, you know, surface?"

Hallas nodded. "_You just need to swim over to where you see light, and your tentacruel will bring you to the surface inside the island. It is really very simple._"

"So, um, that's it?"

"_Yes, I believe it is._"

Priscilla bit her lip. She wanted to ask if he had any information for her, since she seemed to notice a bit of a pattern with the haelliads she encountered - she would meet them, they would be fatally injured while saving her from certain death, and then right before they died, they would impart some sort of wisdom on her.

But she felt rude asking for information now, because Hallas wasn't dying right away. It was just a sickness taking its toll on an aging body - nothing unusual about that. Sad, yes, but not unusual.

Plus, she had always been taught to respect her elders, and the rock fish _definitely_ fit the whole "elder" category.

So instead of asking for information, she pushed herself halfway off Sting's body and wrapped her arms around the relicanth in an awkward hug.

"_What was that for?_" Hallas asked as she wiggled her way back onto the tentacruel, careful not to lose her grip on the jelly and float out of his protective bubble (and die).

"I just, I don't know..." Priscilla looked away. "I wish we could have gotten to know each other better, since I guess this is, you know...goodbye. I, um, I really don't like saying goodbyes...like that..." It sounded garbled underwater, and she had to try really hard to keep herself from swallowing water instead of air, but she hoped he understood what she couldn't quite make herself say.

That she _felt bad, _and she didn't even completely know why.

When she got the courage to look back at him, the fish was smiling. "_Don't be. You have many more people to meet in your lifetime. You are young - you shouldn't have time to be sad. Now please, go finish what you started. I believe in you, young one._"

With that, Priscilla felt Sting pulling her out of the deep water and up to the surface, never to see the old fish again.

---

"I don't know, Sting," Priscilla said as she lay on a rock overlooking the salty lagoon of Sootopolis. "I still feel like shit."

"_I thought you said you weren't going to swear,_" the tentacruel muttered as he floated back and forth in the water near her, playing with the moon's reflection in the semi-still water. "_You said that was my bad habit, not yours. It's kinda bitchy to steal someone's bad habit like that, y'know._"

"Shut up. You're ignoring the point."

"_Look, I was there, okay? I get it. You feel bad 'cause the old geezer fish said he was gonna die._" He paused, then added: "_It was really awkward._"

"Well, aren't you sentimental."

Sting shrugged half of his tentacles. "_Whatever, man. Haven't you met, like, ten of those weird things that died right away? You should be, like, used to it by now._"

Priscilla lifted her head up to glare at him. "Geeze, Sting, you could try being a _bit_ more sympathetic. These people are _dying_, and I feel like it's my fault. Get it through your thick head that I'm feeling like total shit and I need someone to talk to since I _obviously_ can't talk to my best friend, since she just _disappeared_ because she had a _dyke-crush_ on me, or whatever, and I have my second last gym battle rematch tomorrow and if I lose again, I don't get another shot because the stupid gym is closing down for the season, and -"

She cut herself off with her own scream as Sting splashed some water on her. "_Get a grip, Shannon. You're being melodramatic, and it's probably because you haven't slept at all recently and you're doin' your monthly bleeding and you're just bein' a moody teenager, or whatever._"

His trainer sat up, wringing her hair out, and glared at him. "Fine. I am. I'm tired and I'm cramping and the stupid Pokemon Center is all out of painkillers. Happy?"

"_I dunno. Are you happy?_"

"What do you think? I bouncing back and forth between wanting to throw something at you for not being a good guy to talk to and wanting to cry."

"_Then do one of 'em._" Priscilla picked up a pebble and threw it into the water, missing Sting by a little. "_That was pathetic._"

"Whatever."

Sting sighed. "_I suck at talking to people like you, Shan'. You should get Lakshmi out._"

"You mean Vrinda."

"_Huh?_"

"Nothing," Priscilla sighed, brushing her wet hair out of her forehead. "I'm gonna try and go to sleep. You wanna stay out longer?"

"_Nah, I'll go back into my 'ball until you need me tomorrow._"

The teen smiled a little and zapped her tentacruel back into his capsule. "Good night, you inconsiderate little..." She trailed off and bit her lip. She really felt like crying now, but she really had no good reason...

Sure, Sting threw it into the simple categories of sleep debt, PMS, and teenage mood swings, but she _felt_ like it was more important. Why didn't anyone understand that?

"_Darcy_ was easier to talk to than you guys," Priscilla muttered, clipping Sting's pokeball onto her wetsuit's belt next to the other five pokemon that she'd be using for her final gym battle. Granted, a couple of the pokemon on her current team didn't really know her that well, since she mostly just trained them recently...

But Fang was on there in between the newbies, and _he_ didn't understand.

She found herself missing Jet, even though he probably didn't care. Same with Tor and Bliz. Besides, last she checked, all three had completely bonded with their current trainers, leaving her just an afterthought.

"What's wrong with me?" Priscilla sniffed.

"_You're a teenager, sweetie,_" a familiar voice whispered from behind. Priscilla whirled around, trying to find the body she knew it belonged to - but she couldn't see anything. "_Anything and everything is wrong with you._"

Priscilla opened her mouth then closed it. "She can_not _be talking to me right now," she told herself. "I'm probably just imagining it." Even so, she kept looking around her, trying to catch a glimpse of misdreavus.

A little voice in the back of her head told her that Darcy might actually be there, but just be invisible - because after all, ghosts could do that. And after spending three nights on Mount Pyre a few months back, did Priscilla ever know that...

"_Why can't I talk to you, Pris-ci-lla?_"

"Because you're not here and I don't like you."

"_That wasn't very nice. You don't really mean that, do you, sweeeetie?_"

"Nope," Priscilla said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "I mean it."

"_But we were friends,_" she heard Darcy's voice say through a smiling mouth. "_I remember you saying I was your favorite._"

"I changed my mind."

"_Is Jet your favorite? Or dear little Tor?_"

"Steel's my favorite," Priscilla said, though she wasn't sure how true it was. Sure, Steel was one of her best friends, but she also really liked having Vrinda and Fang with her, and now that she had spent so many weeks with only him for company, she couldn't really imagine life without Sting.

"_It's so funny to see how you outgrow your friends, sweetie._"

"Shut up! I don't need to talk to you - you're not even here! Besides, all you ever do is make me feel worse. God, I hate you," she hissed, then turned and made for the Pokemon Center door.

She stopped a few steps before it when she didn't hear a response.

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"_Do you want me to say something?_"

"N-no..."

"_You're lyyying._"

"Fine," Priscilla muttered, turning around to face the dark Sootopolis night. "Say something."

"_I don't hate you,_" the invisible ghost said quietly, though Priscilla couldn't tell if it was a sincere, manipulative, or evil giggle sort of quiet. "_I wish you would understand that, sweetie._"

Priscilla shrugged, though she could feel herself starting to feel nervous and scared. "Y-yeah, well -"

"_Please, sweetie, just remember that. I don't hate you. I miss you dearly, and I know that when I see you again, I won't be able to interpret that emotion very well. Just please, please remind me that what I feel towards you is not hate._"

Priscilla grinned. "Darcy wouldn't say that. That means you're not Darcy! HA!" She opened the door and stepped halfway in, only tossing her head back to deliver a final: "I win, you stupid counterfeit ghost thing."

And she walked in and up to bed, trying to avoid the judgmental looks of those in the 'Center lobby.

---

She was down to Fang.

Priscilla gritted her teeth, crouching on her floating platform, trying not to fall over. She hadn't been counting on actually using Fang - but here she was, pretty much unable to use anyone else.

Across the makeshift lagoon from her, she saw Juan standing like a surfer, waiting with a smile on his face to see who she let out against his kingdra. She knew that his crawdaunt, sealeo, and whiscash were too tired to fight (just like pretty much all of her team, save Fang and maybe, if she were lucky, her gyarados, Draco), but his he'd recalled his luvdisc with still a lot of fight in her.

So that meant that Fang had to either take out two pokemon or actually knock the kingdra out on the first shot...

Or knock Juan off his platform. That was the other way the gym battle ended - if it didn't end by one side getting a KO, it ended with the trainer being thrown into the water...which was how she lost the second time.

It was just her luck that it was a stormy day, too. The clouds were thick, and it rained a bit during the first bit of the match. It really surprised Priscilla that so many people stood in the stands built into the side of the island - even her father managed to take time out of his week to fly down to Sootopolis to watch his daughter fight for her last gym badge.

"Go, Fang!" Priscilla yelled, releasing the dog onto one of the rocks. She gritted her teeth as he slipped before finding footing on the slick rock - the waves weren't making it any easier for landlocked pokemon to fight in the ocean. Her only other "landlocker", Bree the breloom, had lost her footing pretty quickly, and had to be recalled after only taking a few hits. If only her lanturn had sent his last attack faster...then Juan wouldn't have been able to recall his crawdaunt and release his stupid whiscash.

The mightyena surveyed the half-submerged kingdra and took a deep breath. "_Last one?_" he growled back to Priscilla.

"Uh, don't think about that.'

"_Heh. Then I am,_" he said with a toothy grin.

Priscilla took a deep breath, too, looking at Juan. He was waiting for her to attack first, and that made her a little nervous. "Win this quickly, Fang," she whispered, not really caring if he heard because he already knew. "Scary Face!"

The kingdra seemed a little intimidated, but he just countered with a Dragon Dance, negating Fang's attack.

Priscilla groaned. So much for that... "Super Fang!"

And so the battle commenced, Fang jumping towards Kingdra and attempting both to hit the dragon and not to fall off his trajectory towards the next rock jutting out of the water.

Unfortunately, almost all of Kingdra's attacks were long-range, and Fang's primarily involved contact. Priscilla's heart sank as she watched most of Fang's attacks either miss or get sacrificed in order to avoid drowning. Pretty soon, Fang was purely on the defensive, only focused on dodging Kingdra's attacks.

Priscilla wanted to cry. Instead of focusing on the present, she found herself flashing back to her previous two challenges against Juan and how both of them ended.

The first was when she watched Vrinda get thrown against one of the rocks, slip, and hit her head. She lost consciousness almost instantly, but Priscilla kind of remembered it in slow motion. It had been such a long battle, lasting for over an hour, she couldn't really believe it when it was finally over.

The second time was a lot faster, because Juan had his whiscash use Surf - and not to hurt her tropius, Tropo. Oh, no, he used the Surf to make her lose her footing. She remembered seeing Tropo's shocked expression as he watched his trainer fall backwards into the freezing ocean water...

After the third time through the flashback to her second failure, she snapped out of it. "Fang, Scary Face!"

"_That stupid! Don't work!_" he growled through his panting and scrabbling onto another rock.

"Switch targets - it'll work!"

"_What? What you mean?_"

"Switch targets!"

He jumped to the side to avoid a Twister. "_You stupid! What you mean?_"

"Fang," Priscilla started, glancing at Juan to see if he was catching on. He was still smiling - she couldn't tell. "There are four targets on this battlefield. You're a target, and so am I. So is Kingdra. Aim your Scary Face at the final target."

It really disappointed her how long Fang took to catch on, but at least when he glared at Juan, Juan didn't look away fast enough. The man froze up, and Priscilla watched him react to the waves more sluggishly.

She smiled.

"Fang, you got one shot to win this. If you mess up, we lose. Know what to do?"

He laughed and hurled himself into the water right in front of Juan's platform.

Kingdra must not have caught onto Priscilla's plan, because he looked too stunned at the mightyena's apparent "suicide" to use it to his advantage or protect his trainer. Juan, however, stumbled too much when the smaller wave caused by the dog's canonball swelled below his platform...

And Priscilla watched as he slowly fell into the water.

She didn't hear the referee declare her the winner after Fang briefly surfaced, though, because she was too busy realizing that her mightyena wasn't a good swimmer.

Luckily, while she froze in fear when she saw Fang slip under, Kingdra shot forward, diving under to rescue both the mightyena and the gym leader from any chance of drowning.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she whispered as she recalled the coughing Fang.

Juan grinned slowly from atop his kingdra, still feeling the effects of the Scary Face. "Battles...are dangerous...no?"

She smiled back. "Yeah. S-sorry about that."

"Do not...be. You fight...well, badge-...winner."

---

"Are you going to challenge the League?" Liang asked as he sat across from his daughter at a Johtoan restaurant.

Priscilla shrugged, ignoring the glares from Fang, Tropo, and Bree from their table. (The rest of her victorious team was outside underwater, enjoying a less land-friendly meal.) "Maybe...eventually."

"Eventually?"

"I, um, have some stuff I gotta do first..."

Liang nodded. "Right. They think Sinnoh will open up soon."

"After four years, right? That's gonna be in, like, two months."

"Are you ready to go back?" her father asked.

Priscilla sighed. "I'm ready to save my mom." _And,_ she added silently, _I'm ready to see Zenith._

_I'm ready to see Zenith...now._


	40. After the Zenith

Chapter 40: After the Zenith

"...We're here."

"_You wanna go up?_"

"Yeah - I mean, wait. Just - just gimme a sec."

"_Fine. But I'm swimming back a little if you need time to 'compose yourself', or whatever, since being too near that goddamn waterfall is painful._"

"Haha, fair enough. Thanks."

Priscilla stared up at the waterfall towering above her as Sting swam backwards. She'd already recalled her other water-types she'd brought along, Pisces the lanturn and Draco the gyarados, so all she had to do was tell Sting to go up the waterfall...

But she couldn't.

Like she said, she needed time to collect herself.

In a few moments, she'd come face-to-face with Zenith. She'd finally see what he was, although she supposed she kind of had an idea of what legendary pokemon he was a copy of. She'd probably see Nadir, too, since they were supposed to be in the same place. (Although, she only knew of the other haelliad because she saw Nadir's name in the Grimoire and heard her name mentioned a few times. Nadir definitely did _not_ have the same direct importance to Priscilla's life as Zenith.)

It had been over four years. In that time, Priscilla had been to three continents, won eleven badges from two leagues, caught and trained countless pokemon, and seen creatures she could never have dreamed up...

Only to see those very creatures die right before her eyes moments after meeting them.

Priscilla bit her lip.

Zenith had helped her so many times before. Without him, she wouldn't have been anywhere - or, at least, her last four years would have been _very _different. If Zenith hadn't gotten into her dream the night before her mother told her she had Poltergeist's Disease, she might have still been ten years old, frozen in time in her homeland. She might have never met Darcy.

For all she knew, without him, _she_ could have contracted Poltergeist's. She might have even died from it.

Priscilla sighed and shook her head.

"Go up."

Sting grunted, took a deep breath, and blew out a reverse waterfall, pushing the duo up into the falling tower of water.

---

About three-quarters of the way up, Sting suddenly whipped out two of his large tentacles towards the rock wall behind the waterfall.

Priscilla screamed with surprise as he pulled them through the water into a cave. She was thrown off his back onto the rock floor, where she rolled over to catch her breath.

"_Shannon,_" Sting gasped as he lay on the damp rock next to her. "_Return me. There isn't any water in this dumb cave-thing._"

"S-sure," the trainer said as she fished out his ball and zapped him back.

She gasped again.

In the red flash of light, she saw the silhouette of a hulking, hunched-over figure towards the back of the cave.

She stood up, staring into the darkness.

"Zenith?"

The figure grunted. "_Priscilla? Is that really you?_"

Priscilla felt her eyes tear up - she recognized his voice. "Oh - oh my God, Zenith - it's - it's really you."

Before she could stop herself, she stumbled over to the haelliad and dumbly put her arms around his body, hugging him and trying not to cry.

"_Priscilla, it's good to see you,_" Zenith said, and Priscilla could hear him smiling. She'd never met either of her grandfathers, since both of them died before she could meet them, but Zenith had that sort of grandfatherly voice she'd heard in movies. (Although, she had to admit, it was weird hearing someone refer to her as "Priscilla" again.) "_I am so proud of you - you made it all the way here._"

"Thanks," she whispered, pulling herself away. "You're - you're a copy of that ground-type in Hoenn, right? Groudon?"

"_I am._"

"So, Nadir is..." Priscilla trailed off, squinting into the dark of the cave. She could hear water dripping near the back. Sting, obviously, hadn't been paying a whole lot of attention when he had forcibly pulled the two of them out of the air and hurled them into the cave. There was _definitely_ enough water in the cave for him to be outside his pokeball - it just wasn't near the cave's mouth.

"_Would you like to see her?_"

"Yes."

Zenith stomped towards the back, waving one of is three hands up to the sky and pulling in sunlight from the far-off outside world. As they traveled into the depths of the cave, Priscilla gasped.

In the cavern in front of her, rain was falling from the rocks above. Below her was a vast pool, inside of which she saw the faint outline of a large whale. "Kyogre?"

"_She is._"

Priscilla sighed, sitting down. "Zenith, I - what am I supposed to do now? I found you, and -" She stopped, turning around to unzip her back and pull out the travel mug. Slowly, she took off the top, letting the golden sunlight's glow add to Zenith's underground sunny day.

The not-groudon smiled, showing all his uneven teeth. "_You brought the sunset in a cup, I see._"

"Yeah. What do I do with it now?"

"_You found a stone in Mount Coronet, right?_"

Priscilla blinked dumbly. "What?"

"_I know you found a rare stone while you were in Mount Coronet - or, at least, Darcy saw you find one. I do not remember which kind it was, although Darcy did not seem pleased with -_"

"Oh!"

Priscilla said, her memory from when she was ten years old and traveling through Sinnoh (like a normal human being) rushing back to her. She could see herself wandering through Mount Coronet, Jet out of his ball, buzzing alongside her. They hadn't yet gotten pulled into the Distortion World, and Jet had just gotten hurt after fighting yet another graveler. She'd been all caught up in not having any more potions to heal him, but he managed to find a stone for her all the same...

"A dawn stone! Jet found me a dawn stone!"

"_Do you have it with you?_"

Priscilla pulled her waterproof backpack off her back and rummaged through it, opening item capsule after item capsule. A few strange potted plants and a random technical machine later, she found the shiny blue rock she was looking for. "Yeah, it's right here!"

"_Give it to me._"

"Why?"

Zenith grinned. "_I have to put the liquid sunset into something, don't I?_"

"Okay..." Hesitantly, Priscilla handed the dawn stone over to the haelliad, trying to ignore the little voice in her head that reminded her that she had both a female snorunt _and_ a male ralts, and that while she didn't know if she wanted a froslass or a gallade instead of a glalie or a gardevoir, she was giving away her option to evolve either of them in that direction.

"_Step back._"

She did, and closed her eyes for good measure. It paid off in the end, because a flash of light greeted her eyelids, giving all the little veins in the lids a ferocious backlight.

When the light disappeared, she opened them to see Zenith holding a pinkish-yellow stone towards her. On closer examination, she could see an liquid inside to the stone, one that gave off a slight glow. "_This is for you,_" Zenith said as Priscilla took the stone from his clawed hands. It felt warm to the touch. "_This is what you have to bring back to Sinnoh and use to set things right._"

"What is it?"

Zenith sighed, plodding over to the edge of the pool and sitting down with a thud. "_You brought me the sunset in a cup. In most symbolic uses of the sunset, it precedes the end of all things good and bright, one last beautiful painting in the sky before death._" In front of him, Nadir, the large, twisted kyogre copy that resided in the cave with him, poked her deformed head out of the water. "_For some of us, the use of the sunset is quite fitting. However, for those of you who this world must survive for, you no longer want a sunset._"

Priscilla frowned, not entirely sure where Zenith was going with this. Honestly, he seemed more like a rambling old man than she was sure she wanted him to be. "So then..."

"_In a painting, how can you tell a sunrise from a sunset?_"

The girl shrugged. "You look at the title?"

Zenith chuckled. "_If there was no title to look at, how would you tell?_"

"Um...I dunno..."

"_Exactly. They look the same - there is no easy way to tell. So that stone in your hand - if you didn't know it held a sunset in it, would you be able to identify it as a sunrise or a sunset?_"

"Um...no?"

The groudon clapped his large hands together. "_Then I have decided. The stone in your hand is a sunrise stone, not a sunset stone. It will bring about the start of the most wondrous day for your world - one of peace and life, not a slow death._"

Priscilla blinked. "A slow death?"

It wasn't Zenith who answered. The whale in the pool opened her mouth to speak...

And, with the exceptions of a few breaks in the story, told Priscilla everything.

---

Over three months later, Priscilla heard the rest of the story. By that time, she'd taken enough notes in the blank pages of the Grimoire to have pieced together most of what was happening.

She also knew how she was getting back to Sinnoh - not only did Nadir tell her enough for her to infer the location of the passage back, but she also got a message from "BEATRICE".

Who, according to Nadir, wasn't exactly the same Beatrice she thought it would be.

Which was why, two days before the four-year day for Sinnoh was over, she found herself standing outside the Viridian City Gym, asking Giovanni if she could meet his wife...

And praying he didn't know that Priscilla was going to indirectly cause her death.

Because now she knew enough about everything to know that she'd already indirectly messed up enough lives beyond repair. She knew enough to know that in order for things to work, for everyone _else_ not to die, too, she had to play along with the plan the haelliads had set up.

When the red-haired woman with the light green stepped out from the back room, Priscilla's stomach tumbled. She looked so innocent - so sincere.

So...pregnant.

Priscilla smiled, though all she really wanted to do was throw up and cry. "Um, hi. Are - are you Johanna?"

The woman smiled back. "Yes. You're Priscilla, right?"

The little girl nodded, trying to keep from falling over.

Johanna turned back around and gave Giovanni a little wave. Priscilla couldn't imagine him as a crime boss when he smiled back at her. In fact, if anything, he looked like a proud father-to-be. "I'm going to go out for a little while, sweetie."

Priscilla bit her lip. _Sweetie._ There was also _that_ whole thing Her life was kind of falling apart, too. (And it was only going to get worse.)

A few minutes later, she was boarding a train to Vermillion City, where they would be taking a ferry to the Sevii Islands.

En route to Vermillion, Johanna turned to face the younger girl and said in a completely different tone of voice that she had used with her husband: "Zenith and Nadir are dead, aren't they?"

Priscilla sniffed a bit. She'd spent a few nights in the cave with them, mostly talking to Zenith. Even though he didn't want her to be there when he and Nadir died, she wanted every chance to get to know the both of them - especially Zenith. When she remembered him, she wanted to remember him as the tall, misshapen groudon copy in all his glory, not some disembodied voice in her dreams and the back of her head. "Yeah. A couple of months ago."

"Who's left?"

She didn't have to check the Grimoire to remember the list of who was still alive. It wasn't long. "Mara, Pentyl, Darcy, and Lyrisa are definitely still alive. Wystan and the three psychics aren't crossed out yet, but Nadir was pretty sure they, um, they weren't gonna make it past tomorrow. She said she saw two of the psychics' bodies already, but she didn't know which ones. And..." Her gaze fell on Johanna's light green gemstone wedding ring.

Johanna smiled. "Me?"

Priscilla nodded. "Are you - I mean, who am...who am I talking to right now?"

The woman smiled a foreign smile from the one Giovanni must have known. "Johanna is asleep right now, though I still would prefer if you call me by her name."

"Right," Priscilla said, though she added under her breath: "It's nice to meet you, Beatrice."

Johanna-Beatrice kept smiling, the ring on her finger glinting in the golden sunlight.

It wasn't a smile Priscilla was sure she liked - and it wasn't the sort of smile you smiled when you knew everything was going to work out well for the person you were smiling at.

* * *

A/N: I'm ridiculously sorry this is late! College owns my soul.


	41. En Route

Chapter 41: En Route

The Ruins of Alph had become so touristy and overrun with scientists that it was impossible to have any privacy. If anything, they were doubly ruined now that that the Johto government had declared the site a national monument, even though the declaration was supposed to protect it.

Not so with the Tanoby Ruins - tourists in the Sevii Islands chain weren't quite as interested in ancient history, it seemed, as those on the mainland; there weren't even enough Sevii natives to devastate the Tanoby site if they were. Besides, Seven Island's main attraction was the Trainer Tower to the north, not the historic landmark to the south.

Which was, in fact, why Priscilla was on a ferryboat to Seven Island, not a bullet train to Violet City.

When they finally got there, Johanna had the two of them surfing around on Sting's back for awhile, waiting for a couple grad students from the University of the Sevii Islands to stop taking pictures and scribbling down notes.

Priscilla took this little bit of free time to think.

Think about how, once she got back to Sinnoh, she was going to find her mother and make sure she hadn't died - that was one thing Nadir said she saw all over Sinnoh. Death. Poltergeist's Disease patients moving up in symptoms. Half-visible beasts bursting out from through slits in people's necks.

It wasn't going to be the happy home she once knew. That much, at least, was certain. But it was home, and that was where she wanted to be after four years of exile. (Pleasant exile, but exile nonetheless.)

"You know what to do, right?" Johanna-Beatrice asked when the annoying USI graduate students finally started to get ready to leave.

"I think so..." Priscilla frowned. "I just go into the 'unown world', or whatever it was you called it, and then somehow I find my way back to Sinnoh?" She paused. "Um, how exactly do I do that? The getting back to Sinnoh part, I mean. And why," she added with a slightly more severe frown, "do I even have to get back to Sinnoh this way? Why can't I just surf in or take a plane or a ferry or something?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Do you think commercial planes are going to be running back to Sinnoh tomorrow?"

"...No..."

"What about ferries? Do you think _they'll_ be running?"

"(Sigh.) No."

"And," Johanna added, flipping her hair to to the side of her face and running her fingers through it. Priscilla knew this was Johanna fixing her hair, not Beatrice, since from what she noticed, the haelliad could care less about Johanna's physical appearance. "How fast do you think the Kanto-Johto and Hoenn governments are going to let people get back into Sinnoh? Even the ones who got stuck outside the cage?"

Priscilla sighed again. "Not very fast."

"Right. So if you want to get in right away - which, I'm sure you already know, you _do_ - you'll have to sneak in. The easiest way to sneak in is to get in through the unown's little world," Johanna said with a shrug. "It pops you right out in Solaceon Town, too, which nobody would expect you to land in. They would expect people to go for the seaside towns and routes, since they'd be expecting people to get in _conventionally._"

In front of Priscilla, Sting was rolling his eyes.

Priscilla kicked her foot in the water, splashing water onto his back. Sting wasn't exactly the most respectful of all her pokemon, but he was dependable - if there was one thing she learned since she left Lilycove City to go to Mossdeep, it was that her tentacruel as loyal as he was powerful. Hence why he was on her team for the return to Sinnoh.

Only one of her other Hoenn pokemon was with her - Fang. She _wanted_ to bring Steel, but there were only two extra slots on her team...

Her _old_ team. The one up of pokemon Priscilla had caught and raised in her home region.

Sans Darcy, of course.

She knew she needed Sting, just on the off-chance she had to travel over some sort of body of water. Sure, Sinnoh didn't have as many bodies of water requiring passage as Hoenn, and the water routes were considerably shorter, but after spending so much time out on ocean routes, Priscilla just didn't feel comfortable without a surfer on her team.

That, and she was going back to a much colder climate than her Hoenn team was used to. It probably wouldn't bother Sting, since he was an ocean-faring water-type, but Steel didn't move fast in cold climates, nor did he move well on ice. Trying to use him in Shoal Cave had turned into a disaster.

Mightyenas, on the other hand, were known to grow thicker coats when placed in cold climates, and they could get traction on icy surfaces thanks to their claws.

Plus...

Dark-types had a type advantage against ghosts.

"...Priscilla? Are you listening to me?"

Priscilla blinked and looked up at Johanna-Beatrice. "Um, yeah," she lied. "Totally listening."

The other woman didn't seem to buy it, but shrugged it off. "I said that the students were gone. We can go now."

"Oh," Priscilla said, exchanging a nervous glance with Sting. "Right."

So, just like that, they hopped on top of Sting's back and swam off towards one of the nearby caves.

---

"I can open the portal pretty easily," Johanna-Beatrice said as she shone a flashlight onto a stone slab inside the cave. It had some strange writing on it, and apparently, it was going to reveal a passageway to Sinnoh.

Priscilla wasn't exactly sure how a rock was going to turn into a doorway to a far-off region, but she had seen stranger things. By now, she figured she'd just go along with whatever the haelliads told it. It was probably safer for her to do that, anyway.

"It would probably help if you had one pokemon out with you, just to navigate. Especially one that could travel in ways other than walking - that way, if you get disoriented while walking, chances are your pokemon won't."

Priscilla thought for a moment - the only pokemon she had with her that didn't travel by walking were Sting, who swam, and Jet, who flew.

She wasn't exactly sure how big this "unown world" was going to be, and the stone slab (and soon to be portal) didn't exactly look big enough to fit a giant, sea-monster-like jellyfish through. That, and what if there wasn't any water? Even if it didn't keep him from moving around, Sting _hated _it when there wasn't any water. When he hated things, he complained. Priscilla definitely didn't need his whining during this leg of the journey.

So that left Jet...awkwardly enough, she didn't really talk to him much after she got him back from Ichiro two days before. Since then, they only exchanged a couple words.

None of those words, however, included the question that hung on the forefront of her thoughts -

Jet obviously knew the ancient power attack. She had him use it for her when she was testing all of her return-to-Sinnoh team's attacks.

If he knew ancient power, then why wasn't she in the possession of a yanmega?

The others had evolved - even Blizzard, who also evolved by knowing ancient power - giving her a torterra and mamoswine she had no idea how to use in combat. Crystal and Ichiro tried telling her the battle techniques they'd picked up while training them, but Priscilla still wasn't sure how to deal with their size.

But Jet?

Why was he still the same yanma she'd left with Ichiro almost four years ago?

"Well?" Johanna-Beatrice asked, putting a hand on the stone slab. "Are you ready?"

"I think so," the younger trainer said, taking Jet's pokeball and expanding it. "Should I release Jet when I'm in the unown world, or before?"

The redheaded woman shrugged. "I would recommend here, on the off-chance the pokeball's release button doesn't work while in transit. It should, but if you want to be safe..."

One flash of white light later, a yanma buzzed up into the air next to Priscilla's head.

Then, underneath Johanna-Beatrice's green gemstone ring, the stone disappeared, leaving a hole in the earth.

Sooner than Priscilla would have liked, she found herself jumping in, her still-unevolved starter pokemon flying in after her.

---

The unown world was a little bit of a disappointment. Priscilla had expected something a lot...scarier.

The world Priscilla and Jet found themselves in, however, wasn't the most terrifying place they'd ever found themselves in.

It reminded Priscilla a lot of the ancient ruins people sometimes found in the Hoenn Desert. The unown's world was dark and with swirling purple light in the sky instead of stars, but there were large stone structures all around her. They looked kind of like houses, but they had ladders and stairs everywhere and were too blocky for the pointed rooftops of the modern world.

They also glowed a bit, as if they were more ghostlike than solid and build from clay and stone. Jungle-type plants seemed to grow around the buildings, but they were even more ethereal than the settlement's old structures. (Priscilla didn't really like that part.)

As she and Jet walked through the town, they examined the buildings more closely, and saw that strange letters had been etched in to every surface of every structure. They looked vaguely like Roman letters, but had circles jutting out of the middle of every letter...

Kind of like eyes.

And kind of like pokemon she remembered people talking about and sometimes showing her - the unown.

Priscilla vaguely remembered one of her friends telling her that they used to have one...one of Crystal and Ichiro's friends she met back in Sinnoh, though she couldn't remember if it was Lisa or Silver that said so, or which letter they said they had.

"_I see pokemon,_" Jet said finally, jolting Priscilla out of her reverie. "_They're all around us. Do you think they're going to attack?_"

Before Priscilla could marvel at how well Jet spoke and how well she understood him (even after so many months of not really interacting with him), they were surrounded by floating animated letters, peering down at them from their single eyes.

"_Who are you?_" one of the unowns asked. It had a single stem cutting out from the bottom with a smaller branch halfway down, and a triangle protruding from the side of its face. Priscilla guessed it corresponded to the letter F. "_Why are you here?_"

"Um, my name is Priscilla," the girl said, trying not to get dizzy from all the unowns flying around. Jet had already decided to get out of the air, landing on his trainer's head. She supposed she was glad, just for that moment, that he wasn't a yanmega, because then he would have been much heavier. "This is Jet. We're going to Sinnoh."

Another letter, one that looked more like an X, narrowed its one eye. "_But your Sinnoh is blocked off. There's something wrong with it. We know. We have friends there._"

Priscilla bit her lip. "I mean, it's in a cage, yeah, but the cage is gonna go away soon. Like, tomorrow-type soon. That's really soon. If I go through here," she said, looking around, not entirely sure what "here" even meant, "I can get to Solaceon Town before anything bad really happens." She wasn't sure if that was exactly why, but it seemed like a good enough reason to give to a bunch of talking, floating cyclops-letters.

A smaller unown, one shaped like a C, bumped into Priscilla's shoulder. "_We're worried about our friends,_" it whispered.

"Oh," Priscilla said, suddenly realizing that the unowns had the capacity to be downright adorable (despite their inherent creepiness). "Um, your friends will be fine. Can't they all just come back here if things get bad, anyway?"

Jet tensed on her hair, and Priscilla could see why - some of the unowns looked a bit offended. "_Try not to make them angry at us,_" he hissed. "_Remember what happened with Darcy in Mount Coronet? She made me go back in my ball and YOU disappeared for three months._"

"_Some of our friends aren't going to come back,_" an older-sounding O said solemnly. "_We have already resigned ourselves to that. Even if they die, your world is crumbling faster than we can fight it. If it were a simple genocide or the end of a civilization, they would just return to us,_" it said, and Priscilla eyed the stone buildings around her. They definitely looked "end of a civilization"-y. "_But, as you know, that's not what's happening._"

Priscilla bit her lip. Nadir had told her a little bit about what the heart of the problem was, but not everything. However, she knew enough to ask: "Can you connect to...to the _r-real_ world?"

An E replied, "_Which 'real' world are you referring to?_"

"The one...that we - we _should_ be. The...the _real_ one," Priscilla said, trying to mime what she meant.

None of the unowns answered, though they parted a little to her left, allowing her to see a building with a similar stone slab to the one that disappeared back in the Tanoby Ruins. Except... "_That's not the same rock,_" Jet said for her. "_It's different. It looks the same, but it's different._" Priscilla could almost hear him talking to _her_, implying that _she_ knew exactly why it was different, and that she was involving the little yanma way more than he wanted.

It really was her fault that he was messed up in all of this.

"It goes to the Tanoby Ruins, though, right?"

"_It goes to an island within a large island chain, south of Kanto, that was part of a set of archaeologic sites discovered by the Department of Botany of the University of the Sevii Islands._"

"Oh," Priscilla said, looking at the rock. "But it's not the same one we left from."

"_No, it is not._"

"How many of those stones do you have? Tanoby Ruins stones, I mean. Like, ones that are the same as that one and the one me 'n Jet came from."

The unown seemed to shrug. "_A few. That one is the strongest, though._"

Priscilla eyed the stone, wanting to run over there and jump through, landing in the _correct_ world.

But that was the whole point, wasn't it?

She had to go to _her_ world. _Her_ Sinnoh. Not the one from the world that stone lead to.

"_You had better explain all of this to me,_" Jet hissed from atop her head. "_I don't like any of this._"

Ignoring him, Priscilla turned to the unown cloud. "I'm ready to go to my Sinnoh. Can you show me where the portal is to the Solaceon Town ruin site?"

An S-shaped unown bobbed up and down in the air, nodding. "_Follow me._"

They followed the stream of floating letters through the shimmering town until they reached a stone pillar with many identical, etched slabs of grey rock creating a ring around the middle.

Priscilla assumed one of those stones lead to the Solaceon Town she wanted to go to...

And she assumed it was the one that a small, foxlike creature sat in front of, turned around and looking at her. The look on her face wasn't excited either - it was largely emotionless, with a slight hint of annoyance. "_Well,_" Mara demanded as Priscilla's blood ran a little colder than before, "_what took you so long?_"

---

A/N: Whew! The Hoenn arc ("The Alias") is officially done. The next arc, "The Retaliation" starts with the next chapter. Also, I want to add that I'll probably start going back to a regular update schedule, so I'll probably post chapters sometime on Thursdays (US Central time), both here and on DeviantArt.

Also, thanks to all the new readers and people who continue to read new chapters when I post them. Thanks, you all are the best!


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